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Contents of this book

Page 81 - Page 100 of 184

Page 81 - Page 100 of 184

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Page 81 - Page 100 of 184

Page 81 - Page 100 of 184

This eBook is a reproduction produced by the National Library of New Zealand from source material that we believe has no known copyright. Additional physical and digital editions are available from the National Library of New Zealand.

EPUB ISBN: 978-0-908329-64-9

PDF ISBN: 978-0-908332-60-1

The original publication details are as follows:

Title: College rhymes : an anthology of verse

Author: Alpers, O. T. J. (Oscar Thorwald Johan)

Published: Whitcombe & Tombs, Auckland, N.Z., 1923

COLLEGE RHYMES

116

Gather, my people, round about your Queen!

Though I have not the hues of grey and gold

Which kindly Time lets fall upon the old,

Like my great sisters, reverend and serene,

Who full five hundred crowded years have seen, —

I have young blood and stirrings manifold

And soarings of the Spirit, swift and bold;

Shall I not glory in my lustres ten f

I bear no weight of crushing centuries;

I never wore the shackles of a creed,

And am not maimed and scarred with brutal chains

No drowsy potion lurks within my veins.

I dread not heresy, nor sloth, nor greed,

But gaze into the dawn with fearless eyes.

Arnold Wall

College Rhymes

AN ANTHOLOGY OF VERSE

WRITTEN BY

MEMBERS OF CANTERBURY COLLEGE

1873 1923

O. T. J. ALPERS

Edilet-tn-ChieJ

T. W. CANE i RENE WILSON

J. H. E. SCHRODER MAUD HERRIOTT

Co-Editors

WHITCOMBE ® TOMBS LIMITED

Auckland, Christcburck, Dunedin and Wellington. N.Z. Melbourne and London

12

SUBSCRIPTION EDITION

To the Memory of the

Founders of Canterbury College

this Book is Dedicated by her Graduates

in Grateful Acknowledgment

of their Wisdom, Foresight and Love of Learning

J. C. Bradshaw, Mm. Doc.

Repeal for Chorus

Cantuariensium Carmen Academicum

Yrbe nostra quaenam urbs

plus habet nitorisT

quaeuam plena gratiae

fructuosioris ?

iactat campos überes,

colies, flumen, flores,

conditores prouidos

patriosque mores

iactat praeter cetera

summam uenustatem

Cantuariensium

Yniuersitatem.

Templum hoc magnificum

uirtutis, doctrinae

omant aulae, porticus, :

omant officinae

bibliothecam capit

aulas dirimentem,

regiam mechanicam

fumum euomentem.

celebremus splendidam

ob amoenitatem

Cantuariensium

Vniuersitatem.

Inter laudes summa laus

sunt adulescentes,

Flos latae prouinciae.

hue conuenientes.

inter sese comiter

sexus aemulantur:

omnes academiam

pii uenerantur.

celebremus quae mouet

tantam pietatem

Cantuariensium

Vniuersitatem

Professores tribuunt

institutionem,

ipsorum societas

eruditionem.

arti dialecticae

feruidi studemus;

colimus nos musicam,

fabulas docemus.

celebremus quae parat

hanc humanitatem

Cantuariensium

Vniuersitatem.

Sapimus desipimus

idem mente sana

sustinet athletics

membra quoque sana.

quindecim folliculum

lutei sectantur;

super rete uirgines

pilam iaculantur.

celebremus quae parat

hanc iucunditatem

Cantuariensium

Vniuersitatem.

Alma mater in polum

laudibus tollatur,

magis et magis sua

fama perfruatur.

senatores floreant,

bene moderentur:

professores floreant,

celsa meditentur.

claram Deus sospitet

in aetemitatera

Cantuariensium

Vniuersitatem.

Hugh Stewart.

Preface

The verses in this Anthology are the work of men and women who have attended Lectures or taken their degree at Canterbury College at some time or other during the first fifty years of its history. The volume asks a welcome mainly from members of the College, for whom primarily it has been compiled : they alone will fully appreciate the topical allusions and personal references to be found in its pages. Most of the verses have been printed before: on Diploma Day Song Sheets, in the Canterbury College University Review, in volumes of verse separately published, or in earlier anthologies; The Australasian Students’ Song Book, New Zealand Verse (Currie and Alexander), The Jubilee Book of Canterbury Rhymes

(Alpers). Our acknowledgments are also due to the Christchurch “Press” and “Sun”; to the Sydney “Bulletin,” and the “Triad,” to the Christ’s College Register, and the Girls’ High School Magazine. It has not always been possible, owing to shortness of time, to apply for permission to produce, either to authors or publishers; we tender our apologies and thanks.

Specially written for the Jubilee of the College and for this volume are the prefatory sonnet by Professor Arnold Wall and the Cantuariensium Carmen Academicum by Professor Hugh Stewart. The music for this has been composed by Dr. Bradshaw. The etching which forms the frontispiece is the work of Mr. Ronald McKenzie, a member of the staff of the School of Art.

We desire to express our thanks to the publishers, Messrs. Whitcombe and Tombs, Ltd., and to their staff for the very great interest they have taken in the publication.

The profits—and it is confidently anticipated there will be substantial profits—will be handed over to the fund now being raised for the purpose of placing a window in the north end of the College Hall in memory of students of Canterbury College

who fell in the Great War

0. T. J. Alpers.

T. W. Cane.

J. U. E. Schroder.

Irene Wilson.

Maud E. Ilerriot.

Christchurch, May, 1923

Contents

PAGE

Introductory xvii

PART I.

Long Live Canterbury College 3

Ad Lydiam 4

Redeant Saturnia Regna 6

Quot Homines Tot Sententiae 8

Occidit Miserum Crambe Repetita Pupillum 9

"A College-of-Wales" Young Man 11

"Bicky" 13

"The College Engineers" 15

Cantilena Cantuariensis 16

Bull Froggie 18

Secret Society 19

"The Otagiad" 20

Gay Helvetia 23

The King of the Fortunate Islands 25

Registrar Joynt 28

Of Lispeth at College 30

Ode on a Distant Prospect of Canterbury College 32

When Knights Were Bold 35

A Moral Poem About Lost Antiquities 36

To a Young Lady Just Entering the University 38

Two Miniatures 38

The Rhyme of the Rector 39

Song of the Dissolute Young Man 41

Ode to a Certain Professor 42

Nursery Rhymes 43

Lines to the Drama Society 44

"Intrant Animalia...." 46

Iste Professor 47

"Ode to Infinity" 48

The Song of the Sport 50

Tea at College 52

PART II.

The Passing of the Forest 57

The Lawyer's Bride 60

Two Pictures 62

Saturday Night 63

The Grey Company 65

Spring Fires 67

CONTENTS

PAGE

Slumber Song 68

Onawe 69

When Lilac Blooms 71

Mein Kind, Wir Waren Kinder 72

The True Immortals 74

One by One 76

Autumn 77

Sonnet to Robert Browning 78

Rectius Vives 79

Extremum Tanain 80

The Casualty Lists 81

A Time Will Come 82

The Old Botanist's Farewell to the Southern Alps 83

Pan 85

Pantoum of the Plug 86

Two Voices 87

Summer Longing 89

Upon the Hearth 90

Landabunt Alii 91

The Reformer 93

Six-Thirty 94

Evensong 95

Arcady 96

Ecce Homo 97

Non omnis moriar 99

Light and Shade 100

My Pool 101

Antumn in Christchurch 102

Hougomont, 1815 103

Desire 109

"A Very Gallant Gentleman" 115

The Street 116

Triolets 117

"God the Invisible King" 118

The Answer 119

Heathcote 121

To Timothy 123

Eighteen 123

Short Stop: Hagley Park, Christchurch 124

September 124

Joy 125

Tu Ne Quaesieris 126

Notes 127

Goblins 122

Nocturne 114

Rangiora 11l

List of Subscribers

H. D. Acland, B.A. (Oxon.)

C. E. Adams, D.Sc.

J. C. Adams, B.A. (Oxon.)

R. Allan

Henry Allison

0. T. J. Alpers, M.A., LL.B.

P. H. X. Alpers

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Miss A. S. Bourke, M.A

Miss D. W. M. Bowie, M.A.

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The Right Rev. M. Brodie, D.D.

Professor J. Macmillan Brown,

M.A., LL.D.

Miss N. M. S. Bruce, M.A

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S. Bullock

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M. J. Burns

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T. W. Cane, M.A.

Canterbury Club

Canterbury College Library,

Canterbury Public Library

W. T. Charlewood, B.A.

A. B. Charters, C.M.G., M A.

Professor Chas. Chilton, M.A., D.Sc.

Mrs. W. H. Clark, M.A.

C. E. Clavdon

Louis Cohen, M.A.

Professor J. B. Condliffe, M.A

J. S. S. Cooper, M.A., B.Sc.

W. C. Couch

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Professor H. G. Denham, M.A., D.Se.

L. R. R. Dennie, M.A.

A. T. Donnelly

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A. Fairbairn

J. P. Firth, C.M.G., B.A.

J. A. Flesher

A, E. Flower, M.A., M.Sc.

A. D. Ford

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F. W. Foster, B.A.

R. P. Furness, B.A.

LIST OF SUBSCRIBERS

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Mrs. J. P. Gabbatt

L. W. Gee, LL.M.

Miss M. V. Gibson, M.A.

H. A. W. Gillman

J. Glasgow, LL.R

H. F. von Haast, M.A., LL.B

W. M. Hamilton

Mrs. E. J. Harrington

A. 6. Henderson, B.A.

R. Hepburn, LL.B.

Miss E. M. Herriott, M.A.

Professor J. Hight, M.A., Litt.D.

Henry Hill, B.A.

H. Hine, 8.A., LL.B

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Miss M. A. Innes, B.A,

W. A. Izard, LL.B.

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Miss K. Leonard, M.A.

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A. D. Mead, B.E

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Miss C. B. Mills, M.A., B.Sc.

Miss M. C. Mills, B.A.

F. Milner, M.A.

Mitchell Library

Mrs. T. Mulligan

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Miss E. A. Newman, M.A

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C. C. Plante, M.A.

Miss H. N. Porter

E. B. R. Prideaux, M.A., D.Sc.

H. Rands, M.A., B.Sc.

Mrs. E. T. Reece

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T. W. Rowe. M.A.. LL.B.

Sir Ernest Rutherford, M.A., D.Sc., F.R.S.

Sir John William Salmond, M.A., LL.B.

T. H. E. Schroder, M.A.

W. L. Scott, M.A., B.Sc

S. G. Secular, B.E.

S. Hurst Seager, M.R.1.8.A

Miss F. Sheard

A. Sims, M.A

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H. C. D. Somerset

Professor R. Speight, M.A., M.Sc.

Professor S. Steele, B.Sc. (Ene.)

Dr. J. Stevenson, F.R.C.S. (Edin.)

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J. M. Stewart

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LIST OF SUBSCRIBERS

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Turnbull Library

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The above 170 subscribers have subscribed for 175 copies. These with 25 EdirilLM7«o eW a,d p ' eser ' ta,lon purposes make a total for the Subscription .tdjtion of 200 copies. To this sumbcr it is strictly limited.

Christchurch , May Ist , 1923,

INTRODUCTORY

A CHAPTER IN THE HISTORY OF CANTERBURY COLLEGE.

In a letter addressed to the Editor of the “Canterbury University College Review,” and printed a year ago, among other suggestions for the celebration of the Jubilee of the College, I put forward a proposal for the publication of an anthology of College verse, and added, with a light heart,

“That will be your job. Mr. Editor.” In a circular issued a few weeks ago, inviting subscriptions to this volume, I stated, in the same irresponsible mood, that the book would open with

an Introduction “in reminiscent vein,” giving an account of the Dramatic and Literary activities of members of the College during its first half century. Both suggestions have turned into boomerangs: upon me has fallen the position of Chief Editor, and to me also has been assigned the responsibility of writing that Introduction “in reminiscent vein.”

The task of selecting and editing the material in the volume has been shared by my co-editors; without their able help and co-operation it would have been quite impossible to do the work in the time available, or at all. Bach one of us shares fully with the others the responsibility for the choice made; and each one of us, equally with the others, must bear the blame for those faults of judgment and errors of omission which appear to be inevitable in any anthology. But the shortcomings of this Introduction are all my own.

Of the first ten years of the history of Canterbury College I am unable to speak from personal knowledge. During its second decade I was closely associated with its life either as a

xv ii

INTRODUCTORY

student or as a subordinate member of its teaching staff: and since that time I have always been able to maintain some degree of connection with it, to keep its memories fresh, and its friendships unbroken. That must constitute my qualification for writing this chapter in its history.

The students in the early years were necessarily composed of men and women engaged in professional and business pursuits in the town. To them Canterbury College was a place where they attended lectures and sat for examinations. They had little enough time for that —none for anything else. But there was always Saturday night—even the titanic energy and perfervid enthusiasm of “The Father of Canterbury College,” Professor Macmillan Brown, left Saturday night free of lectures. And very soon Saturday night was set apart for something not less valuable but less formal than lectures. The Dialectic Society was formed in 1878, and at its meetings students began to write essays not intended to be “marked,” and papers not destined to rank for “passes.” The Society was but four years old when it resolved to embark upon a bold course. “Your Committee,” so ran the minute, “beg also to report that they have for some time had under their considera-

tion a proposal to produce a play at the end of the year, after the University examinations, and are in a position to announce that the play will be acted by the students of the College early in December.” Orie notes with interest the words “after the University examinations”: how shocked would have been the earnest men and women of those strenuous times had they foreseen, some twenty years later, an Easter Tournament bisecting the First Term, and a Diploma Day Procession disrupting the Second.

The Play, produced on December 9th, 1881, and repeated on June 15th, 1882, was Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing”—no less! Not a cut abbreviated or bowdlerised “Much Ado,” but the whole play entire as Shakespeare wrote it, properly staged and dressed and acted exclusively by students.

Among the supers at the second performance was Heinrich

xviii

INTRODUCTORY

von Haast, destined later to take a prominent part in the life of the College. I quote his impressions of “Much Ado”:—

“Prior to coming to College I had been taken to see the great dramatic effort of the pioneer students, ‘Much Ado About Nothing,’ in St. Michael’s schoolroom. It was rather in the primitive style of art, but the acting was good, and it would be hard at any time to find a better couple as Dogberry and Verges than Tony Foster and Ben Connal, whose dry humour exactly suited the roles. Then, as subsequently, it was the ridiculous that struck me, and has lingered in my memory. The costumes had been borrowed from the Sunnyside Lunatic Asylum. Claudio appeared in a pair of crimson shorts, with large frills of lace at the knee, strongly suggestive of lingerie. There were not enough tights to go round, and the burly Antonio was forced to don a pair of grey underpants that rucked damnably at the knee as with admirable passion he declaimed,

‘Boys, apes, braggarts, jacks, milksops.’

“In the first performance, Mrs. Alfred Merton (Miss Grierson) was a piquant Beatrice, Thornton the Benedick, and Guise Brittan, Leonato. At a subsequent perform-

ance Brittan took Benedick, and Hogben Leonato. I became no longer a critic, but one of the company, as a member of the Watch.”

A laudable, if venturesome devotion to “the legitimate” continued for some years to inspire the dramatic efforts of the students. On Diploma Day in 1884 “She Stoops to Conquer” was played. It was acted on a stage ten feet by nothing, at

“Wainoni,” the beautiful if bizarre home of Professor Biekerton, on one of the many occasions when his generous hospitality brightened the lives of a hard-worked generation of students. And the fare on this occasion was generous indeed; “She Stoops to Conquer” was followed by Gilbert and Sullivan’s “Patience,” with Mrs. T. Garrard in the name-part, Andrew Anderson as Grosvenor, and J. J. Kinsey (now Sir Joseph) as a

xix

XX

INTRODUCTORY

lissom and tuneful Bunthorne. As the stage was not much larger than a hearthrug, the “Twenty Love Sick Maidens” were, I remember, for the nonce, reduced to four.

The producer of “She Stoops” was George Hogben, afterwards Inspector-General of Schools, who played “Old Hardcastle.” He was an experienced amateur, and had played, I think, the same part in theatricals at Cambridge University, and the players owed much to his coaching in the “business” of the piece. Heinrich von Haast played Tony Lumpkin as to the manner born. Hastings and Marlowe were acted by Louis Cohen and W. H. A. Craddock. Of the ladies in the caste Miss Beatrice Gibson (Mrs. Talbot) “stooped to conquer” in the part of a very fascinating Miss Hardcastle, while Miss Helen Connon (Mrs. Hurst Seager) was a sprightly Constance Neville. A well-turned prologue, written by R. P. Irvine, now Professor of Economics at the University of Sydney, was declaimed by Miss Gibson, and formed, I think, the first of all verse, not perhaps written, but certainly printed, of any student of the College. I have made unavailing efforts to secure a copy of the programme on which the prologue was printed, in order to include it in the Anthology, but I am enabled to quote the following extract reproduced from the C.U.C. Review of October, 1917:

“Peace, Goldsmith, to thy soul; thou’rt not forgot;

Thy mem’ry, purged of every trivial blot,

Hath found a pathway o’er the seas, and ’cross

A stormy century of years withouten loss;

And now ’neath other skies, and in a land

Of virgin wealth, whose acres want the hand

Of brawny millions, where no ‘Auburn sweet’

Lies desolate beneath the iron feet

Of greed and pride; here, by a gliding stream

Where thoughtful youths of ‘Will of Avon’ dream

The visions of thy brain do live again.

And thy Thalia lures into her train

A band of maidens fair, of cultured air,

And youths of polished wit and debonair.”

INTRODUCTORY

I witnessed that performance: and for me at least the glamour of that night will never fade. A boy of seventeen, attending lectures but as yet not matriculated, until that night my one ambition had been to become that exalted being—a Bachelor of Arts—and to be asked to tea for it: henceforth, perish such pedantries. In my dreams gown and trencher yielded place to sock and buskin: I, too, would be a College amateur and strut it behind the footlights with the limelight turned full on. The opportunity soon came: Hogben and von Haast—the great ones of the earth —condescended upon me, and I made my debut on the stage of the College Hall in some scenes from Feilding’s “Mock Doctor”—in a female part! For twenty years the lure of the footlights held me till I made my final bow—“positively his last appearance”—in Hare’s role of Sir Peter Lund in “A Fool’s Paradise.”

The next play to be produced by students—apart from dramatic readings and occasional scenes* played at Dialectic Society Concerts—was Sheridan’s “Rivals”—staged at St. Michael’s schoolroom on Diploma Day, 1887. It is to be feared that the play was selected less because of its general suitability or literary merit, than because the promoter of the entertainment saw much “fat” for himself in the part of Bob Acres. Much was left to the imagination: lace curtains suspended from the flies indicated “A room in Captain Absolute’s lodgings”; creton curtains, ditto, were accepted by an indulgent audience as depicting with sufficient verisimilitude “A Street in Bath.” Bob Acres, in his zeal for realism, was so bedaubed with white grease-paint in the duel scene, to indicate the fear he was not artist enough to convey without it, that when he fainted in the arms of Sir Lucius o’Trigger he left a white profile outlined on the breast of a black velvet coat, as an indelible proof of his emotion. J. P. Firth, as Captain Absolute, dominated the stage in a very literal sense; David Watt played Sir Lucius with a most

*E.g., “Mr. Verdant Green is made a Mason,” adapted and acted in 1886 by von Haast, Webb, Ward, Meek, Hargreaves, and Alpers.

xx i

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INTRODUCTORY

convincing, because native, brogue; E. R. Anderson was Sir Anthony Absolute to the life; and Mrs. Malaprop was acted with great success by Miss Florence Fletcher. Others in the caste included S. Hurst Seager and his wife, Miss Nellie Gribben (Mrs. Dunne), R. M. Laing, W. F. Ward, and A. R. Meek.

On Diploma Day, 1888, we produced—this time at the Oddfellows’ Hall in Lichfield street—a novel experiment in comedy—“ Aristophanes-up-to-date” or “The New Learning.” Professor Haslam had translated and modernised “The Clouds” into a most amusing and—even from the actor’s point of view-—most effective stage-play. Professor Haslam was not merely a man of the finest scholarship, but had a genius for translation. He could with equal ease turn the pretiosa felicitas of Vergil’s Aeneid into dignified and rhythmic English prose or transmute the “Sermo Merus” of that most delightful man-about-town, Horatius Flaceus, into a racy cockney jargon that caught inimitably the spirit of the original.* These gifts of translation were fully applied in the “book” of our comedy. The satire of the original was boldly diverted into modern channels, and turned with much point upon latter-day foibles. Professor Bickerton’s famous “Partial Impact” formed, equally with the philosophy of Sokrates, a target for the shrewd wit of old Strepseiades. Due regard was paid to the modem taste for realism. Sokrates imperilled his life by descending from the flies in a buck-basket, and his “Reflectory” was set on fire in the last act by the infuriated Strepseiades with a pyrotechnic extravagance that shewed the actors had unlimited confidence in the efficiency of the Christchurch Fire Brigade, whose station at that date was next door to the Hall. The performance passed off without even the proverbial hitch, except that I was again unlucky with my make-up. The huge proboscis in putty, with which as Strepseiades I was necessarily adorned, gave trouble: as the

*Cf. Sermonum Lib. I. 5, 15.... 16. “Absentem ut cantat amieam . . . . nauta atque viator.” While the bargee and the bagman sang “The girl I left behind me.”

32

INTRODUCTORY

evening proceeded and I warmed to my work I parted with my nose by instalments. The truly Gilbertian songs composed by the Professor for the characters of the Just and the Unjust Arguments (J. P. Firth and David Watt) got double encores. Louis Cohen’s Pheidippides, in spite of a most un-Greek moustache, received an ovation; and the fall of the curtain was greeted with loud calls for “Author.” When the stage-manager apologised for the author’s inability to take the call, as he had died several thousand years ago, an undergraduate in the gallery answered with “Trot us out his mummy, then.”

Emboldened by success, the following year, 1889, we put on Sardou’s three-act comedy “A Scrap of Paper.” This was my first experience of stage-management, and I shudder in restrospect at my own audacity. I had modestly cast myself for a minor part, because I was billed to play Pygmalion in W. S. Gilbert’s “Pygmalion and Galatea” in the Hunt Club theatricals about the same time; and so greatness in the shape of stage-management was thrust upon me. With little experience and less money to help us, we essayed the bold task of producing a piece that requires for its success innumerable accessories—the property-list comprised 150 items—and yet in the jargon of the critics the mise-en-scene would have done credit to a trained company; for what we lacked in experience was made up in enthusiasm. The play is full of complicated entrances and exits: there are at times as many as eight actors grouped on the stage at once: and the action moves, or should move, as rapidly as in a modern farcical comedy. Yet there was only one solitary stage-wait, and that, to the delight of the other performers, was made by the harassed stage-manager himself.

There is a wicked story told at the manager’s expense by von Haast (who played Archie, a schoolboy, in a very tight-fitting Eton suit). “What if the stage-manager’s irascible nature flamed up sometimes at rehearsal in a volcanic outburst? When the ebullition had died down, he would, in characteristic fashion, take a cab for the night (to convey the actors to their homes) and express a contrite apology to those upon whom he had

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discharged the vials of his wrath. ‘Wait for the laughs’ was an injunction he continually laid upon us (without regard to the time of departure of the last tram). But the audience took some time to warm up, and at the end of the first act our manager stalked off the stage, with the gloom of Hamlet and the words (uttered in the hollow voice of a crushed tragedian) ‘Not a hand, bhoys, not a ha-and’ —an expression that became a household word at College for some time afterwards.”* But the story—like the report of Mark Twain’s death, —is very much exaggerated.

For all its difficulties it is not too much to say that up to that time no amateur play in Christchurch had been so well acted. This was very largely due to the fact that the leading role was played by Miss Rose Seager (Mrs. H. Marsh). Her beautiful speaking voice, her fine stage presence, and her great natural gifts combined to create for her a reputation as an amateur actress that few have equalled and none have excelled. J. P. Firth, too, in the leading male part, gave a finished and convincing performance; while W. F. Ward as Dr. Penguin, Miss Kate Mcßae (Mrs. W. F. Ward) as Trixie, Mrs. G. H. Merton in the comedy part of Letitia Penguin, and Miss Lucy Deakin (Mrs. J. A. Flesher) f as the winsome maid, helped to constitute a talented company. Only a week ago there reached me, from one of the ladies in the caste, the programme, printed on satin in gold letters, “With the stage-manager’s compliments’’—preserved for over thirty years as a memento. Does there yet linger about it—or is it only my fancy—a faint fragrance of the Roger and Gallet Attar of Roses with which the gift was originally scented?

The period of legitimate drama at Canterbury College came to an end in the following year—lB9o. We took the bold step

'From Skittish Student to Sedate Senator.” C.U.C. Review, October, 1917. tNow become, as these pages are going through the press, by the election of her husband as Mayor of Christchurch, the first student of Canterbury College to occupy the position of Mayoress.

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of engaging the Theatre Eoyal, and had the temerity to produce—Shakespeare! The performance opened with some scenes from “Love’s Labour’s Lost.” What induced us to make this choice it is difficult now to explain. Did we really believe this juvenile comedy had dramatic value, simply because it was the earliest work of a great master—or was it sheer affectation — an arrogant assumption of preciousness in taste—just as one has heard a critic consciously demode acclaim “Troilus and Cressida” as a masterpiece of tragedy? However that may be, the students who brought so much zeal and ability to the task of acting it, failed to make it interest a modem audience. But the substantial part of the evening’s bill -was the Malvolio scenes from “Twelfth Night.” As lovers of that comedy have no doubt noted, it is possible to present the Malvolio-Olivia plot severed from the Viola-Orsino plot, as an independent play. The cutting and adapting was done by von Haast. The lyrics—and particularly that most beautiful of all:

“Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty,

Youth’s a stuff will not endure ”

were set to music by Lawrence Cane. We were coached by a professional actress, and all the traditional “business” was introduced. No expense was spared in dressing or scenery, and the producer eclipsed all previous efforts in amateur theatricals. Mrs. W. P. Eeeves played Olivia with stately dignity, and Miss M. Y. Gibson was a piquant and delightful Maria. W. F. Ward, David Watt, and C. C. Plante as Sir Andrew Aguecheek, Sir Toby Belch, and Fabian respectively, were great in the roystering scene. None of us will ever forget the mellow brogue of that genial Irishman, David Watt. “A stoup of wine, Maria! . . . She’s a beagle, true-bred, and one that adores me.” Von Haast made the outstanding hit of his stage career as the mischievous musical clown Feste. And I—well, I spoke the lines of Malvolio, I trust with “good accent and discretion.” But here, too, perhaps discretion had been the better part of valour. It was at least an honest attempt to carry out Bentley’s conception of Malvolio, as described by Charles Lamb;

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to avoid presenting him as either buffoon or contemptible in the accepted tradition of the modem stage, and to remember, throughout, Elia’s description of him, “He becomes comic but by accident. He is cold, austere, repelling; but dignified, consistent, and, for what appears, rather of an over-stretched morality. . . . His bearing is lofty, a little above his station, but probably not much above his deserts. . . . He looked, spoke, and moved like an old Castilian.’’

How far must achievement have fallen short of ambition! One blushes in the dark to recall the temerity of youth; but we all thought the attempt was worth while; and even among the audience there were those who would much rather have seen University Students fail lamentably in “Hamlet” than succeed hilariously in “Hot Codlins.”

Shakespeare, with amateurs as with professionals, “spelt min.” The house was packed, the curtain did not ring down till 11.30: late as the hour was the audience remained in their seats to give the players a double call. And so it was “excellent fooling when all’s done.” But we had spent half as much again on scenery and accessories as we received at the doors. And as the two stage-struck enthusiasts who had promoted this as well as the preceding performances were responsible for the deficit, they sadly determined for the future to leave the field of legitimate drama for others to sow in.

The others have not yet come. But before me on the table as I write lie a score of fast-fading photographs—of “Captain Absolute” and “Doctor Penguin,” of “Fabian” and “Pheidippides,” of “Tony Lumpkin” and “Toby Belch”— recalling old memories of the brief rivalries that were only mimetic and the lasting friendships that are real*.

For some years play-acting was in abeyance; when it was revived in 1897 it took the form of light burlesque. The revival resulted from the combined enthusiasms of Dundas Walker and T. W. Cane. Walker, who afterwards adopted

*ln these recollections I have quoted frequently from myself: “Sock and Buskin,” O.U.C. Review, October, 1897, but have allowed myself—and the printer’s devil—the privilege of omitting the quotation marks.

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the stage as a profession, was not only a sound actor, but a most versatile and accomplished dancer. Female parts in burlesque were his strong suit: Cane too could dance and sing, but his best contribution to the partnership was his gift for light verse. He could group into the smallest possible space a host of humorous incongruities woven together with much felicity of expression, and a genial thread of cynicism. G. T. Weston and J. Glasgow, Archie Blair and E. F. Johansen, Clive Garsia and C. Maclaverty (not yet Reverend) were members of the merry band, and I acted as stage-manager.

The first piece produced was the burlesque “William Tell.” The best part of “the book” was the introduced songs written by Cane, one of which, “Gay Helvetia,” appears in this volume.

By the next year, 1898, the Walker-Cane coterie had formed themselves into “The Canterbury College Dramatic Club” and produced at St. Michael’s Schoolroom “Acis and Galatea,” a clever burlesque somewhat after the manner of Trevelyan’s better known “Horace at Athens.” Again Dundas Walker’s wonderful dancing and natural acting made the success of that piece; and again Cane’s original verses, which formed the libretto to some bright incidental music, gave literary value to an otherwise commonplace text.

In both these productions Dundas Walker not only painted the scenery and manufactured the “properties,” he designed the dresses. But his designs could not always be carried out; res angusta domi. I think it was in one of these burlesques that a Greek soldier appeared parlously attired. Helmet and breast-plate, greaves and arm-pieces were of highly burnished tin-smith’s ware, but so thin that they “crackled” as he moved. Tunic and skirt were of butter-muslin, but alas! it fluttered flimsily in the draught from the wings. A graduate with a turn for epigram was appealed to for his opinion of the soldier’s get-up—“A cross,” said he, “between a disappointed balletdancer and a fireman en deshabille.”

It was not till ten years later that Maurice Martin resuscitated the vogue of burlesque. But this time the burlesque

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was written as well as acted by students. Maurice Martin’s “The Aftermath” in 1908, and “His Infinite Variety” in 1909, were produced on Diploma Night. “The Aftermath” I did not see; but of “His Infinite Variety” I was again stagemanager.

Maurice Martin possessed literary talents of a very high order and might have gone far. I quote from a contemporary criticism of the second of these plays: “Under Mr. Martin’s skilful treatment there was never a situation that was objectionably obvious, or a remark that was banal. If Mr. Martin can do these things in his youth; if he retains his facility for tuneful numbers; if he relies more upon himself, putting greater faith in his own undoubted originality, it is almost reasonable to prophesy that there will be a time when the names of his plays will flame from every hoarding.”

Martin went to Cambridge—the first of our “Trinity” scholars; all his friends—and I count myself among them, — hoped great things; but the rich promise of his boyhood was cut short by his premature death in 1913.

From this time on theatrical performances of one kind or another have been a part of each succeeding Diploma Day or “Students’ Carnival” as it is now called. In 1912 and 1913, the staple of the entertainment was again burlesque—a travesty upon the plays then in vogue:— “Damlet the Dane” “A Pool in the Case” and “Blue Bottle” (The Blue Bird) were types of these. Local colour—at times a very vivid colour—was laid on with a broad brush; College events, and current politics formed the target of clever satire. The performers were actorauthors; they wrote or collaborated in writing the burlesques and cast themselves for the “fat” parts. The wit of Philip Carrington, the drollery of C. S. Thomas, who with a native gift for mimicry excelled in what he called “Bellow-drama,” the original humour and sound acting of Roy Twyneham and the dancing of W. S. Wauchop—these are the things that on my mind at least have left the strongest impression.

Then followed “Revues”—and now one is lost in a flight of ephemera. “Crash!” “Gosh !” “Biff!” Their titles it must

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be confessed are no aid to distinct recollection. Topical, amusing, witty,— not infrequently humorous —the work of clever young men: A. W. Brown is the bright particular star among them. They collaborate on “the book” and one may suspect “build it up” as rehearsals progress, or new happenings in Town or College give cues for new gags. The acting is bright, vivid and—the word seems appropriate—full of “pep.” Success too justifies this form of entertainment, and the public flock to it in their hundreds. One wonders if these clever young men could not do something more worth while, something with more literary quality—more permanence. But youth will be served and —perhaps—one becomes groovy.

Two years before the Jubilee of the College, however, an event happened full of good omen for the second half century. This was the formation of the Canterbury College Drama Society. Professor Shelley arrived from England in 1920 to take up the duties of the new Chair of Education; among his enthusiasms—and he has many—is a love for dramatic literature and its presentation on the stage. His readings from the dramatic poets, his lectures on the art of play-writing and playacting aroused in a new generation of students the ambitions that had filled the old. Before long the Drama Society came into being—not, be it noted, a “Dramatic Society” or a club for Amateurs, but a society devoted to the study as well as to the presentation on the stage of dramatic works.

In a Presidential address to the Society in 1922, Professor Arnold Wall dwelt upon the possibilities of New Zealand expressing its national self through drama, and suggested the hope that a New Zealand Repertory Theatre might soon come into existence. In the meantime the Drama Society has made a beginning. A comedy, “The Two Mr. Wetherbys,” was produced in 1921. Last year we had Bernard Shaw’s “Man of Destiny. ’ ’ The play, as might be expected, is a one man play, and the one man was Professor Shelley in the character of Napoleon. The other three characters were played by Miss Prances Fairbairn, P. T. Cox, and J. Earl.

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The hope for the future of the Society lies chiefly in this, that its founder and leader takes an interest in drama which is not merely academic, and that his enthusiasm is controlled by histrionic capacity as well as experience. It is not too extravagant to hope that our own College may contribute to the creation of a New Zealand School of Drama and the formation of a National Repertory Theatre. The Drama Society for all its small beginnings may yet attain a place of distinction in the history, some day to be written, of dramatic art in the Dominion.

In the early days, as we have seen, play-acting led to verse-writing, and the two were interwoven. Towards the end of the eighties, Diploma Day exuberance began to find vent in topical songs, set to popular airs. In them genial satire of Professors, comment on passing events, and undergraduates’ propaganda found lyrical expression. Heinrich von Haast, an inveterate punster and facile writer of rhymes, was responsible for many of the earlier songs. His “Long Live Canterbury College,” had the place of honour on the first Diploma Day song sheet (1889) and it has been printed at the head of the annual song sheets ever since. Some dozen Diploma Day songs are included in the volume. They record the foibles of Professors or the eccentricities of officials; they celebrate the creation of a new faculty, or the erection of a new wing; they sing the joy of sports and games and the general beastliness of “swot.” Some are witty and polished verse, others are frankly doggerel, but doggerel spiced with humour. Not all are equally original; the chief indebtedness is to W. S. Gilbert, because Sullivan’s airs were tuneful; but here and there songs of other schools and colleges are parodied with more or less freedom. Three are in Latin and these not the least witty. All of them it is hoped contribute to the object of this book, to place on record for her sons and daughters the life of our Alma Mater in the days of her youth.

The sister University of Otago established a monthly “Review” early in the eighties. In its pages appeared, in 1888.

INTRODUCTORY

W. E. Ward’s Macaronic “The Otagiad,” in which with mingled wit and scholarship he celebrated the Inter-Varsity Football match of that year. But it was not till 1897, that Canterbury College followed the example of Otago and published its own “Review.” H. H. Ward was the first editor; and he was able to set a standard of excellence that has been well maintained.

Several of his successors have been men of great literary gifts and three of them at least are represented in the Anthology: A. E. Currie (Editor in 1904), Philip Carrington (1911), and J. H. E. Schroder, co-editor of this volume, who conducted the ‘ ‘ Review ’ ’ with conspicuous ability through all the difficult years of war—and after, (1915-1920). Those who read Currie’s “Laudabunt Alii”, Carrington’s “Hougomont 1815”—a poem that won the Chancellor’s Medal at Cambridge,-—and the selections over Schroder’s signature will realise how much the “Review” owed in forming and sustaining its standards to men of their tastes and gifts. Number dilfers from number in quality; song birds are not swallows that come with every spring; but it is rarely that a “Review” is not brightened by at least one good contribution in verse. The best of them are here included.

The Dialectic Society has always been the foster-mother of poets and essayists. In the early eighties several of the Presidential Addresses were printed in pamphlet form and rare copies of these are still treasured: —Professor Macmillan Brown, “Student life and the fallacies that oftenest beset it” (1881) ; Professor Cook,“ University Life” (1882); and Professor ITaslam, “Dialectic: its early history, and its place in education” (1884). In later years papers by students or ex-students were from time to time printed: “Beautiful, Passionate Italy” was the title of an address given by James Hay on his return from his “grand tour” in 1886.* Charles Chilton’s Presidential address on “The History of the Dialectic Society,” was printed

*A sentence from Hay's paper still clings in my memory: After his first day's sight-seeing in Rome he went tired to bed —to dream that he was 1 ‘Walking down the Appian Way, arm-in-arm with Ut and the Subjunctive."

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in the C.U.C. Review, and will, I understand, be re-issued in pamphlet form at the Jubilee—a very valuable contribution to College history. A paper by Apirana Turupu Ngata—the first member of the Maori race to become a university graduate —“Echoes of a Dying Race”, drew warm praise from critics in the London Press and formed the subject of a highly eulogistic article in the London “Spectator.”

In 1887, when I was secretary of the Dialectic I made one innovation upon its stereotyped programme which I am glad to think has held its place since. This was Olla Podrida Night, when anonymous contributions in verse and prose were sent in by members, read at the meeting, and submitted to a vote to determine their order of merit. Many of these contributions have found a place in the “Review,” and some a place in this book. Not a few students ventured their first flight in the safe anonymity of Olla Podrida, and took courage to write more from a favourable vote.

It only remains to introduce more formally the contents of the Anthology.

All the writers are members of Canterbury College. Some only attended courses of lectures without matriculating: others became, but remained, undergraduates: a large number are graduates and three are or have been Professors. Most of the selections have been printed before; but many are now published for the first time. Of these two have been specially written for the Anthology; the Sonnet by Professor Arnold Wall which faces the frontispiece, and the Carmen Academicum by Professor Hugh Stewart. Canterbury College is relatively less devoted to classical learning than it was in my day, hut it is not yet entirely given over to mathematicians and economists, to commercial scientists or “base mechanicals.” This fine song may help to keep alive the love of scholarship. It is worth while to learn Latin if only to be able to sing it; for its hammering rhythm stirs the heart like the roll of drums. May

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generations of students yet to be join in singing its refrain to Dr. Bradshaw’s noble music:

“claram Deus sospitet

in aeternitatem

Cantuariensium

Vniuersitatem! ”

The Anthology is divided into two parts, though the editors have refrained from attempting to label them separately. Enough to say that Part I. contains topical verse. Each selection has some reference to College events and personalities or to the happenings and characters in the public life of the Dominion. It is on the whole in lighter vein. Part 11. contains verse that is associated with Canterbury College not in theme, but merely from the circumstances that the writer received some part of his education within its walls, whether as teacher or taught. It has not been found practicable to adopt any definite principle of arrangement except the chronological. The reader must browse at will and cull flowers where he finds them. Some of the writers are already well known. Jessie Mackay, Dora Wilcox and the late Mary Colborne-Yeel have published volumes of verse; so too have Arnold Wall, W. P. Reeves, Johannes C. Andersen, and W. S. Harris. Several pieces here printed have appeared in anthologies before; in “The Australasian Students’ Song Book,” in Currie and Alexander’s “Anthology of New Zealand Verse” or in my own “Jubilee Book of Canterbury Rhymes.” Other poems—notably those of 0. N. Gillespie—were first published in the “Sydney Bulletin.” I fear we have taken French leave; there was not always time to ask permission either of authors or of publishers; all that can be done is to make tbis belated acknowledgment and to tender thanks.

Canterbury College has cause to be proud of her sons and daughters. Several have already attained distinction beyond our own shores: as novelists the late H. B. Harriot Watson and A. J. Buchanan; in science, Sir Ernest Rutherford; in classical scholarship, Benjamin Connal and Leo Greenwood; in the

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public life of the Empire, Sir William Harris. Even of the little band of writers represented in this volume some have already made their mark in life. Others are young men and women of abundant promise but as yet of no achievement; two are girls who left their school but yesterday. The contents of the book are therefore necessarily of varying degrees of merit. But our aim has been not merely to honour success; much more has it been to encourage endeavour.

I do not anticipate that a second edition of this Jubilee Anthology will be called for. But I do predict that a Centenary Anthology will be issued in 1973. I trust that some at least of the verses printed in this volume will be repeated in that, and I even dare to hope that its Editor will be gracious enough to say in his Introduction that the tone of apology with which I have introduced the verse of some of the younger contributors to this book has proved to be uncalled for, because they have, in the years that lie between, attained an assured place in the world of letters.

0. T. J. ALPERS.

Christchurch, 1923.

PART I

46

Long Live Canterbury College

Long live Canterbury College, long live College,

She has reared and brought us up;

At her fount we’ve drunk of knowledge, drunk of knowledge,

Sipped it from her classic cup

Then, long live each Professor, the greater and the lesser,

Long life and health to all;

And long live all the undergrads., they really are not half so

bad as people them would call.

Now’s the time for mirth and play On our glad Diploma Day.

Long speeches only bore us, so sing in merry chorus a stave to pass the time:

Our song is done, the festival’s begun

Diploma Day Song (1889).

Ad Lydiam

Pace tua, Lydia mea,

pauca quaedam sunt monenda

tibi iam futurae nobis

ciui et eolumnae rerum.

uereor enim ne matrona

ista (cui est nomen Linton)

de Millenio Mulierum

uana loquens te seducat,

absit igitur inuidia

ista qua solemus ambo

studia, indolem, uirtutem

inter nosmet comparare.

melius enim nobis semper

uiro erit et puellae

nostrum currum animo uno

quamuis binis iugis trahere.

necnon dum consilia noua

forte pendas pectore tuo,

turpem fumum, turpius uinum.

omnia mala deletura,

caue tune cupiens tollere

saeua et crudelia bella.

nimio studio eaptans pacem

railitem putes delendum

4

48

AD LYDIAM

adhuc enim uiris casus

graues rerum debent tradi;

noli, Lydia, tangere tela

tibi telae sunt seruandae,

fuge uero, mulier, fuge

talia stolida consilia

quibus non millennium nobis

uideo esse iam futurum.

nimio enim pads studio,

ni appareat pads bora,

mihi quidem ueniet dolor

tibi fatum peius meo.

Diploma Day Song (1891)

49

Redeant Saturnia Regna

Air —“ Trelawny.”

In the days of old, ere the world grew cold,

When our Universitee

Sent monkey graduates marching up

To a Chancellor Chimpanzee,

Then orangoutang toffs were our only Profs.,

And palm tree groves our halls,

And Lancaster Park was a jungle dark,

And cocoanuts made footballs.

Chorus —

0 sometimes still, try hard as we will

We sigh for those days again.

When each undergrad, was a monkey glad—

They were palmy ages then!

For a Registrar we’d a gorilla,

But there wasn’t a library fine;

And we lay at our ease till noon in the trees,

And we didn’t turn out at nine:

And a Board was a thing to be sat upon then, ;

Not a thing that sat upon you

And we cracked our nuts with a big stick, which

Was the only Malet we knew

Matric. was a thing of a jump and a swing.

In those days gone hy so far;

And we took our degrees in the forks of the trees,

With a leaf for a diploma;

And he bossed the rest who could climb the best,

But he did it without red tape;

0 he wasn’t so fat you could bet your hat

When the Registrar was an ape!

REDE ANT SATURN IA REGNA

Then we learned a date by its flavour sweet,

Not out of a rubbishy book;

And extracted our roots when we wanted to eat,

Nor bothered a jot for a Cook;

0 we eared not a dam for any exam,

And life was worth living then!

’Twas a howling shame when old Darwin came

And turned us all into men.

Yes, that was the day when the world was gay!

With our arts, and science, and such,

All the pains we take are a great mistake

We’ve evolved far, far too much;

For undergrads then, whether monkeys or men,

Were as they will always be;

Wherever you went, out of every ten,

There were nine at the top of the tree!

Diploma Day Song (1892)

7

51

Quot Homines Tot Sententiae

Air : “Vicar of Bray.”

When good Prof. Cook holds forth to us,

On surds and conic sections.

Instructs us in the Calculus

We speak with circumspection;

Say Taylor is our sole delight,

And Parkinson a pleasure,

That English all our hopes doth blight,

And plagues us beyond measure.

I would that all my trials were o’er,

And I a graduate free, sir,

(From lectures, profs., and all such bores)

And M.A., B.Sc., sir.

When on the scene comes smiling Brown,

And English comes in fashion,

The Calculus is hooted down,

It kills imagination;

The soul it cabins and confines,

And cripples it most sorely,

Imagination soars aloft

In Mason and in Morley!

Now Alpers fills the well-known place,

Of wisdom most platonic,

Much famed for dignity and grace,

Professor embryonic;

A model youth devoid of pride,

A warrior at elections,

Just “like the good young man that died”.

All free from imperfections.

Diploma Day Song (1892)

52

Occidit Miserum Crambe Repetita Pupillum

This is the play that Bill wrote-

This is the Dane who was off his head

Who appears in the play that Bill wrote —

This is the book the Professor read

About the Dane who was off his head

Who appears in the play that Bill wrote—

This is the gent of German descent

Who wrote the book the Professor read

About the Dane who was off his head

Who appears in the play that Bill wrote —

These are the notes the Professor embodied

To use in his lectures, when once he’d studied

In an English translation the explanation

(An awfully cute ’un) the learned Teuton

Evolved of the Dane who was not quite sane

Who appears in the play that Bill wrote—

This is the Prof, that read the book

But never agreed with the view it took:

For he knew much better the “Art,” etcetera,

Of Bill aforesaid who wrote the play

About the Dane, who was mad as they say

Than all the German books in a lump

Which explain that the Dane was off his chump

Who appears in the play that Bill wrote—

This is poor Bill who wrote the play;

He’s dead and gone, so he cannot say

What he meant by the Dane of whom it was said

That he may or may not have been off his head,

By the learned Doctor who wrote the screed

With which the Prof, has never agreed,

53

OCCIDIT MISERUM CRAMBE REPETITA PUPILLVM

Who both of them think they know much better

Than Billy himself, his “Art,” etcetera,

And whether he meant the Dane “to be”,

For “that is the question,’’ or “not to be”

As sane as a judge or as mad as a hatter,

Or a little of both —but it don’t much matter

For whichever it was we must all of us cram

The notes of the Prof, to pass our exam.,

Till we’re utterly sick of the Dane called Ham-

let who comes in the play that Bill wrote.

Diploma Day Song (1893)

"A College-of-Wales Young Man"

Air: from “Patience.”

A College-of-Wales young man,

A knowledge-in-bales young man,

A highly-poetic,

And slightly-prophetic,

Aesthetic, magnetic, young man!

An up-to-date young man!

A never-eome-late young man!

A vowel-gradation,

And i-mutation,

A stratification young man!

Chorus —

A jolly-good-sort young man,

Whose-lectures-seem-short young man,

A fill-his-position

With care-and-precision,

A great-acquisition young man.

A sometime-entombed young man,

Though-lately-exhumed young man,

A talk-of-“old Sweet,”

And jump-on-“ old Skeat,”

A “come-sit-at-my-feet” young man!

A hair-with-a-curl young man,

A moustache-with-a-twirl young man,

A got-up-to-kill,

And never-sit still,

Off-his-bike-came-a-spill young man!

11

‘A COLLEGE-OF-WALES YOUNG MAN

A big-Maori-word young man,

Such-as-never-was-heard young man,

A palatalization

Glide-diphthongization

Word-specialization young man,

A dodecaglot young man

A philology-swot young man,

A very unswerving,

And highly deserving

Think-little-of-Irving young man

Diploma Day Song (1899)

55

"Bicky"

Tune: “Bobs.’

Medium video discedere caelum palantesque polo stellas.

There’s a genius here, you know—

That’s Bicky

Whose fame is sure to grow;

Ain’t it, Bick?

There’s not the slightest doubt

He’s the best man round about

For finding queer things out;

Ain’t you, Bick?

Chorus —

So let’s all give a cheer

For Bick, Bick, Bick

For he’s quite without a peer—

Little Bick, Bick, Biek.

It’s only right we ought

Whom he has so ably taught

He’s a jolly good old sort—

Little Bick.

You may lay your bottom dollar On Bick,

That you’ll never find a scholar Like Bick;

But his lectures would be prime

If his speech he would confine

To one thing at a time;

Hear that, Bick?

He’s as happy as a king—

Ain’t you, Bick?

To tell you anything

Ain’t you, Biek?

56

57

“BICKY ”

And he never will get weary

Of answering any query

On the partial impact theory;

Will you, Bick?

He’s painted red and green— Has Bicky—

An extr’or’nary machine;

Ain’t you, Biek?

I ’ll tell you what it’s for

It’s to save no end of jaw

On the periodic law;

Ain’t it, Biek?

Diploma Day Song (1901)

"The College Engineers"

Costume Song: Air, “The British Grenadiers.

Tu regis amnes, tu saevam machinam

Some talk of Deans and Doctors, and some of LL.B. ’s,

And grow inept in grinding for their dull and dead degrees;

But for broad-brimmed jocularity there’s none that can compare

With the rowdy dowdy boys of tow, the College Engineers,

Those men may know the leading points of prehistoric fleas,

But they’ve done no graft at Addington in dirty dungarees.

It’s here our boys have got the bulge, and up-to-date ideas

Are an ever-present glory in our College Engineers.

When ordered by their burly chief to test the strain and stress

Of helicoidal cones and cogs, they have no time to dress,

Or talk of airy nothings with the little College dears:

They graft and come up smiling, do our College engineers.

No time is theirs to conjugate the primal Latin verb,

No time to talk with Wilkie of some cryptogamic herb;

Rank oil is not in sympathy with Gallienic tears,

Though lovely on the blueys of our College Engineers.

They tread the darksome regions where the wild log eater are,

Prefer the grimy cutty to the saunterer’s cigar—

The crash of bolting engines is sweet music in the ears

Of the rowdy boys of oil and tow, the College Engineers.

At times the public’s told that they are thirsty, hot and dry,

And their dryness breeds confusion in the land of x and y,

But the vapid vacant penster and the pale pink paper’s sneers

Are thistledown upon the skin of the College Engineers.

In spite of idiosyncrasies, they’re human beings still,

And after all, we guess it’s fairly up to us to fill

The nippy little Chartreuse, or the long and luscious beer,

To drink success, etcetera, to the College Engineers.

Diploma Day Song (1901)

58

Cantilena Cantuariensis

Rursum peruenimus

ueteri in loco,

paulisper lenimus

studia ioco

uos academicos

Anglicos ehemicos,

atque polemicos

undique uoco.

tolle poemata

diei exspectato,

priseam anthemata

reote cantato!

nouem Sororibus

nostris ex moribus

laetis cum oribus

earmina dato!

cantus diligitur

maxime a nobis,

gaudemus igitur,

canere uobis

übi iocundior

uel uerecundior

turba, uel mundior

exstat in globis?

a eiuitatibus

sumus collecti

ex uastitatibus

quidam profecti.

hie mihi est lectio.

tibi refectio,

illi dilectio,

pulchramque am

plecti.

Again we have come together

In the old place,

For a little while we lighten

Our studies with amusement.

You students,

English students, chemistry students,

And debaters,

I summon from all sides.

Bring along your songs

For the long looked for (degree) day,

Let the old anthem

Be duly sung!

Unto the Nine Muses,

According to our custom,

With joyful lips

Let songs be given.

Singing is loved

Greatly by us.

We rejoice, therefore,

To sing to you.

Where does a merrier

Or more modest

Or more honourable band

Exist in the universe ?

Prom the various cities

We are collected

Out of the back-blocks

Some have come.

Here there is reading for me to do.

For you, refreshment

For him there is affection,

And pursuit of the beautiful.

59

CANTILENA CANTUARIENSIS

plurima discere

To leam many things

omnino nolo,

I by no means desire,

sed meo hiscere

But to stick to my own

ingeniolo:—

Little ideas

folleue ludere

To play with a (foot) ball,

nauemue trudere

Or to propel a boat,

Or to smite a (tennis) ball,

pilamue incudere

egomet nolo.

I personally prefer.

Diploma Day Song (1905)

60

B

Bull Froggie

Tune: “Tit-Willow.’

A little frog lay on the bank of a stream.

Croaking Proggie, Bull-Proggie, Bull-Proggie;

And he basked in the sun till his life was a dream,

Croaking Proggie, Bull-Proggie, Bull-Froggie.

Alas! little he thought that behind him did stand

The grim Georgie, who stretched out a murderous hand,

And secured with one vicious grab, frog, grass, and sand.

Croaking Froggie, Bull-Froggie, Bull-Froggie

He was brought to the lab. in a glass bottle wide,

Croaking Proggie, Bull-Proggie, Bull-Proggie;

For the girls to stick pins in the little inside

Of Bull-Proggie, Bull-Froggie, Bull-Froggie.

Soon a maid set to work, but she gave a short squeal,

As she stuck a sharp pin through each arm and each heel.

Never mind, said the Prof., he no longer can feel,

That dead Froggie. Bull-Froggie, Bull-Froggie.

Thus at last came the end of the short, happy life

Of Proggie, Bull-Froggie, Bull-Froggie,

Prom the stream to a jar, from the jar to a knif

Cutting Proggie, Bull-Froggie, Bull-Froggie.

So you now understand, if you want a 8.A.,

To have passed your exam, by the only sure way,

You can never succeed though you try night and day

Without Proggie, Bull-Proggie, Bull-Proggie.

Diploma Day Song (1905).

61

Secret Society

“Song of the Cherubim.”

Tune-. “Little Mary.”

There are seven little ladies who’ve inscribed themselves on fame, ,

The Rosy Cherubs.

And to designate their members they have given themselves the name

Of Rosy Cherubs,

They are the most bewitching pretty maidens you could see,

The most delightful specimens of demoiselles jolies,

A collection of all virtues—yes, that’s the M.R.C.,

The Rosy Cherubs.

Chorus

Mother’s Rosy Cherubs —we adore them,

We’re unanimous in admiration for them;

And if you don’t mind your eye,

You’ll be fascinated by

One of Mother’s Rosy Cherubs,

There are girls of every species, and of every size among

The Rosy Cherubs

There is one quite microscopic, while another’s very long,

Both Rosy Cherubs;

Then one is very musical, and one is sober, very,

Another’s rather quiet, while another’s rather merry,

The last one bosses all the rest for she’s the Secretary

Of the Cherubs.

Chorus

Mother’s Rosy Cherubs—we’re delighted

To observe such splendid qualities united.

When you meet one of the seven,

You imagine you’re in heaven,

With that Mother's Rosy Cherub.

Diploma Day Song (1905).

62

"The Otagiad"

A Macaronic By Pugnae Particeps.

Arma viros-que cano qui hard by the banks of the Avon,

Cujus in gelidis lymphis the schoolboys in summer do lave ’em,

Fought the grim fight with Otago, a nation bellorum peritus.

Domi so often invicti they thought they could easily beat us.

Now will I tell of their coming borne on by the monstrum horrendum

Vastos per shingly campos (for no irrigation can mend ’em

Cheering the way with old tales of the deeds of the temporis acti,

Last year’s doings down South and the man who was minus his neck-tie,

Donee longo itinere fessi they ended their journey.

Felt for their coats and their bags as faces began to discemi,

There on the station expecting the great studentium agmen,

Clamorem ad sidera tollit, and almost at once to the drag then

Rush the long waited for foemen. Turn instat equis auriga,

It clamor eoelo “aboard”, and mid shouts loud and loyal

j " ——— j Tired, hungry and thirsty, the team started off for the “Royal.”

You, O Calliope, precor, inspire me the whiles that I sing

The team from the damp foggy South the porridge-fed heroes did bring.

Much could be told of their doings, their rerum nobly gestarum,

Their prowess at tennis and linking, the fervidum eursum rotarum,

But longius dieere erat and of such I have given you satis.

I must hasten to tell of the banner, the beautiful gift of the Ladies.

63

“THE OTAGIAD”

Alter dies processit and now in the Hall of the College

Videtur a pageant ne’er seen before in that temple of knowledge.

At one o’clock entered the Captain, magna comitante eaterva;

Stant ad limina viri and listen with silence and fervour

While words of well-wishing and hope sic orsa sacerdos ah alto:

“O gravissima passi 0 team so often defeated

“This banner receive from our hands and may you be fated,

“Si Jupiter velit, to-day to turn on Dunedin the tables

“And 88’s glorious victory be told of in story and fables.”

Talia voce refert. The Captain grasping the banner

Auro ostroque rigentem began in the following manner:

“0 madam and ladies here present, footballers and fellow studentes,

“Whenever we’re fagged and oppressed cum sollicitudine mentis

The sight of that banner shall cheer us, I swear that it will and it shall ma’am,”

“Our ladies’ bright eyes sure will gain us virtutis nobilem palmam.”

Then did his men for three years, when their skip excitedly called ’em,

Answer so lusty and loud that the sound tremefecit the aulam

Now on the fierce field of strife the duae contrariae manus

Omnes with jerseys induti awaited the toss of the nummus.

Many a blue and maroon were doomed to bite mother tellurem

Soil their bright jerseys with mud and their barbara tegmina crurum.

In the grim struggle to win the third of this series of matches

For little they reeked of the falls and the blows and the bruises and scratches.

Soon the ball is kicked off and the pugna acrior crescit

Cresswell attempted a pot, but somehow or other he missed it

Volvitur Thomson excussus humi Otago’s three-quarter,

64

“ THE OTAGIAD ”

Ward will run till he’s grassed and refuses to pass as he oughter,

Torrance crushed up in the serum vix fraeto poplite gemit,

The red tide bore the blues down but yet they manage to stem it.

Nothing was scored in the spell tho’ the reds had the game all their own way,

And the blues were glad when the whistle gave signum desistere pugnae.

Rursus ad anna vocati the reds determined to beat ’em,

But in the first five minutes Cook potted a wonderful metam

Obstupere silentes. The Captain cried “All will be well yet,

Reds, if you’ll only play up.” His dictis pectora mulcet

Rush after rush the Reds made, but full back, halves, and three-quarters

Seemed an impassable wall, and the College’s beautiful daughters

Mourned the approaching defeat. Sed dextram ad sidera tollens

Quidam prayed unto Jove, “0 pater optime pollens

To thee a libation I’ll pour if I get to the goal line before us

Jove granted part but the rest dispersit inanes in auras,

Up to the full back he trot, then fell and passed to another.

He the oval transferred and quickly Craddock was over

Over the bar flew the ball like a bird per aethera pennis,

The battle was over, and res ad nihil redeunt omnes.

Otago JJniv. Review (1888)

W. F. Ward

■22

66

Gay Helvetia

Oh, we’ll sing you a song, it will not take long, Of gay Helvetia;

An idea it’ll give of the way we live

In gay Helvetia.

The land of goats and ice, you know,

Where everything’s as white as snow

And slip and slap and tumble you go

In a manner irregular.

Hurrah ! Hurrah! Hurrah !

For gay Helvetia.

To some extent no doubt ’tis true

We’re very unlike the people you

Would meet if you went to see the view

In gay Helvetia.

Hurrah ! Hurrah! Hurrah

For gay Helvetia.

These boots are not the things, I swear,

That guides upon the mountains wear—

I certainly think they cut their hair In gay Helvetia.

There is a way, so people say

In gay Helvetia,

To cut a dash and do nothing rash

In gay Helvetia,

We do the heights by telescope,

We have no faith in flimsy rope,

And that’s the way with you, I hope,

In gay Helvetia.

Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!

For gay Helvetia.

We think it best to stay below

Where everything is comme il faut

We’re Society people don’t you know

GAY HELVETIA

In gay Helvetia.

Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!

For gay Helvetia.

The guide-book tells us all we want,

And I’m sorry to say we really can’t

Go toiling up a glacier slant

In gay Helvetia

So that’s the way we pass the day In gay Helvetia.

We swear by Cook and his tourist book,

And the excellent Baedeckar,

We buy a paper knife or two,

And a clock that strikes with a loud cuckoo,

For these are things they sell to you

In gay Helvetia.

Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!

For gay Helvetia.

We’re never late for table-d’-hote,

We know the menu quite by rote,

We never dine on mountain goat

In gay Helvetia.

Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!

For gay Helvetia.

We’re very cautious mountaineers,

So you may all allay your fears—

Oh yes, we hope to live for years

In gay Helvetia.

C.U.C. Review (1897).

T. W. Cane

67

The King of the Fortunate Islands

Air: “The King of the Cannibal Islands.

Oh, have you heard the news of late

About the Southern potentate?

If you have not, it’s in my pate,

The King of the Fortunate Islands.

He dwells far off across the sea,

In a fairy land, “God’s own countree,

Where live the weka and kiwi,

And the natives are called “Ma-o-ri.’

His name 1 think you all can guess,

For his initials are “R.J.5.,”

And many a worker’s cause to bless,

The King of the Fortunate Islands.

Chorus (with haka )-

Hokitika, Muritai,

Tenakoutu, Haeremai,

Tongariro, Hataitai!

The King of the Fortunate Islands.

He started life with a miner’s pick,

And so they called him “Good old Dick,”

But to this job he didn’t stick,

The King of the Fortunate Islands.

He spoke so long, he spoke so loud,

Whenever he could find a crowd,

The West Coast folks of him grew proud,

Their M.H.R. they him avowed.

And now a man has but to boast

His home is on the wet West Coast

For him King Richard finds a post;

The King of the Fortunate Islands

68

69

THE KING OF THE FORTUNATE ISLANDS

And so to Wellington he went,

And entered into Parliament;

He had a feeling he was meant

For the King of the Fortunate Islands.

While there he showed such lots of vim,

He throve on “Force” like Sunny Jim,

With lusty lung and sturdy limb,

He made the people hear of him,

And when his leader passed away

He took his chair without delay!

“I’m Premier now. Hip, hip, hooray!”

Said the King of the Fortunate Islands.

When he ascended to the Throne,

He brought in a policy all his own,

And of contention it was a bone

For the King of the Fortunate Islands,

He put the people on the land,

He took the toilers by the hand,

And labour so knit in a band

That sweating came to a still stand.

Said other lands; “He can’t succeed.

On that we’re all of us agreed!”

But by-and-bye they followed the lead,

Of the King of the Fortunate Islands.

Now when the slim and wily Boer

With good old England went to war,

King Richard then was to the fore.

The King of the Fortunate Islands.

From bush and bracken, hill and glen,

He quick equipped contingents ten,

New Zealand’s best and bravest men,

And patriot-like addressed them then.

“Come, rally round the Motherland,

And up with the Union Jack so grand,

And under it we’ll take our stand!”

Said the King of the Fortunate Islands.

70

THE KING OF THE FORTUNATE ISLANDS

A country called Austra-li-a

Determined to federate one day,

And bring beneath the gum-tree’s sway

The King of the Fortunate Islands.

“The hand I hold is good enough

To go alone,” said Richard gruff,

“The cards I have are the proper stuff

Three Kings on top, and then—the Bluff.

For White Australia I’ve regard,

But I don’t want to play in your backyard!”

And all New Zealand then hurrahed

For the King of the Fortunate Islands.

When Edward Rex was to be crowned,

He sent the invitations round.

And in the front row there was found

The King of the Fortunate Islands.

But on that most eventful date,

King Edward was delayed by fate,

And, as he paced the nave in state,

A cry arose: “You are too late!”

He soon fell swooning upon the ground.

For, as he cast his eye around.

He found instead of him they’d crowned

The King of the Fortunate Islands.

One day a cable from afar:

“The Russians have chosen you for their Czar,”

“The time has come at last, Ha! ha!”

Said the King of the Fortunate Islands,

“For here I’ve reigned so long you know,

And had so hard a row to hoe,

It’s time another had a show,

And so I’ll give the reins to Joe.

I’ll pack my Gladstone and off I’ll go,

For soon I’ll have the whole world know,

That what I say it shall be so!”

Said the King of the Fortunate Islands.

H. F. von Haast (1903)

Registrar Joynt

Air: “Father O’Flynn.’

Who is beloved by the whole University?

Who of ripe scholarship has not a scarcity?

Students exclaim without any diversity,

“That is our popular Registrar Joynt.”

Soon he is leaving and crossing the sea, ’Varsity Agent in London to be,

Hence this farewelling, our sorrow we’re quelling,

The praises we’re swelling of Registrar Joynt

Chorus —

Here’s a health to our Registrar Joynt,

For to his record with pride he can point

Patron aesthetic, and man energetic, and friend sympathetic,

J. W. Joynt.

When careless students forget to matriculate,

Rush to the office and rage and gesticulate,

Who is allaying their anger articulate?

That is the job of our Registrar Joynt.

When cables from Home give weak students a start,

Whom do you find in his goodness of heart

Soothing the failing ones, cheering the wailing ones, coaxing

the railing ones?

Registrar Joynt

Who performs tasks of the greatest variety

Freeing the Senate from any anxiety,

Statutes interprets in case of dubiety?

That is our versatile Registrar Joynt.

He signs the card that brings failure or fame,

Cheques for the scholars subscribes with his name;

Thing's academical, legal or chemical, Sessions polemical

Manages Joynt

71

72

REGISTRAR JOY NT

He to encourage our speech oratorical,

Argument lucid and words metaphorical,

Gave for debating that shield, now historical,

Treasured as trophy of Registrar Joynt.

Though he is going so far from us all,

Yearly his mem’ry that shield will recall,

Friend of the tournament, umpire and ornament, soon we’ll

forlorn lament

Registrar Joynt

What shall we do on the next yearly capping day,

When we assemble, that singing and clapping day,

And speakers and students indulge in a “scrapping” day,

Minus the pi-esence of Registrar Joynt?

Then all in vain will the populace wish

To see on the menu our long-standing dish,

Undergrads, roasting him, Senators boasting him, Graduates

toasting him

Succulent Joynt

Soon he’ll be back by the lakes of Killamey,

And giving the Colleens a taste of his blarney,

With Kathleen Mavoumeen and pretty Kate Kearney

One on each side of bould Registrar Joynt.

When he gets tired of code words and marks,

Back to his green little island he harks,

Boycotting daily, and dancing jigs gaily, and twirling

shillelagh

J. W. Joynt.

Now let him see what you think of his quality,

Give him a taste of your fun and frivolity,

Shout out that chorus of jovial jollity,

“Jolly good fellow” is Registrar Joynt.

When he embarks on his new Scholar-ship,

We’ll grasp his hand in a long parting grip,

Eyes strangely wetting, and always regretting, but never forgetting

Our Registrar Joynt.

H. P. von Boost.

Of Lispeth at College

Lispeth goes to College now,

She has put her hair up lately

Little wrinkles crease her brow;

Long skirts make her walk sedately

Yet I do not find her greatly

Altered, ’spite that learned frown—

(Nor attired less delicately)—

Now that Lispeth wears a gown

Where’s the prof, would dare to plough

Lispeth, though her pen innately

Writes sweet things no books allow—

Though she cribs immoderately?

Sage professors, grim and stately,

With indulgence smiling down,

Add her marks inaccurately

Now that Lispeth wears a gown.

Mere men-students labour how

To appear most up-to-dately

Catch her eye to win a bow,

Wear their clothes immaculately;

AII their hats are put on straightly,

All their ties are new from town-

They dread living celibately

Now that Lispeth wears a gown.

73

OF LISPETH AT COLLEGE

So they burn Apollo’s bough,

Wear the willow desolately,

Wander in Despond his Slough,

Sit and swot disconsolately;

Or, constructing inchoately

\ erses blue in studies brown,

Write ballades, thus, second-rately

Now that Lispeth wears a gown

Envoy:

Lispeth!—Most unfortunately

Lightest laughs my pleadings drown;

So I sue importunately

Now that Lispeth wears a gown.

C.U.C. Review (1905)

74

Ode on a Distant Prospect of Canterbury College

Ye distant Halls, all roofed in slate

(Or corrugated iron),

Where I, a would-be Graduate

Your benches used to sigh on

Ye chimneys, belching learned smoke,

What time instructively they stoke

The furnace fires that roar and rage

Ye Labs., where once I frogs dissected.

Or, wooing Chemistry, inspected

Her demonstrative Page.

Ah, happy halls! and chiefly thou

O Club, particularly dear!

(But not thy tariff; I allow

Thy dues were, after all, most fair)

I see once more that verdant cloth,

Where, spite of holes drilled by the moth

I piled up breaks of two each night

My weary soul it seemed to soothe,

As, rolling o’er the baize so smooth

I pocketed the white.

Say, Father Amos, thou hast seen

(But no man else, I’m sure!

Of the Cottage by yon margent green

The chaste interior.

What lovely forms now ’neath the tree

Or grouped in circles think of tea,

Or con their notes for next hour’s lecture

That Cottage, ah, it stirs a chord!

On memory’s tablet’s deeply scored

Its subtle architecture.

32

ODE ON A DISTANT PROSPECT

Gay hopes were ours, when, sharp at ten,

We rose so blythe and gladsome;

And if we had no money then,

Some kind pawnbroker had some.

Who foremost now delights to join

The throng that sheds superfluous coin

In Broadway’s large and gilded hall?

Who football practices now shuns,

And, cursing all games where one runs,

Damns every kind of ball ?

Some still, no doubt, on passing bent,

Resolv’d to work, not trifle,

At lectures try, with zeal well-meant,

Soul-sickening yawns to stifle.

Some still the crib, I understand,

Manipulate with dext’rous hand,

Beneath the professorial eye.

Still as they read, they wish they’d spared

Their nerves with the usual; “Not prepared”

Yet snatch a fearful joy.

Poor dears! I fear they do not re alise the situation;

A sad awakening theirs may be

At the Pass Examination

What dangers lie in slighted book-work,

What perils in each hasty look lurk,

As brain-benumbed they scan each question!

To trust to luck, and “the night before,’’

And native wit, they now feel sure

Was an ill-advised suggestion.

Lo, when Results are cabled out,

A pretty how-d’ye-do!

Three anxious months of horrid doubt

And then, perhaps, not through!

33

C

77

ODE ON A DISTANT PROSPECT

One with reproaches will lament

Because he missed by two per cent.

Another swears there’s been a blunder;

Forced Apathy you’ll also see,

And far-fetch’d Jocularity,

And simulated Wonder

And if they pass—alack, ah me!

(Tis sad work being a poet!)

They’ve still to earn their livings. See

The rotten ways they’ll do it

For some in Business may smear

The nice clean souls they brought from here

Or Politics, so foul and boggy

And others barter youth and ease

(A “grisly spectre” waits for these!)

To ill-paid Pedagogy.

C.U.C. Review (1914).

T. W. Cane

When Knights Were Bold

The trench I’m sitting in is beastly wet—

I’ll get pneumonia, I should like to bet—

We’re going over shortly, so I’m t01d....

And there’s a war on, and my feet are cold

My thoughts fly back to days of long ago,

When gallant knights fared forth to find the foe

They did things with less effort, so ’tis said;

I wish I had been living then, instead.

They didn’t wade through tons and tons of mud,

Whenever they desired a foeman’s blood;

Not much; they scrapped about in nice dry lists,

Or fought at fifty yards with doubled fists.

They didn’t scrap with shells and bombs and tanks,

Nor did they hop the bags in serried ranks;

They didn’t rise and grouse at 2 a.m.

Nor get an acting rank, unpaid, “pro tem.”

In short, these bold, heroic knights of yore

Would find this present stunt an awful bore,

The same as we do; but, without a doubt,

They’d have kept on till Fritz was counted out.

And we’ve one hig advantage, after all,

To give at least a drop of comfort small....

Not one of those past heroes, I believe,

Got first a Blighty, then- —a fortnight’s leave.

C.U.C. Review (1918).

78

A Moral Poem About Lost Antiquities

(This “Moral Poem of Lost Antiquities’’ came to us unaccompanied by any note or explanation. It was written in a very shaky hand, on very crumpled paper, blotched and blistered with what may—or may not—have been tears. After taking due thought we were unable to tell whether it was prose or verse and so print it in a form which enables one to take his choice.—Ed. “C.U.C. Review.’’)

It is the universal experience in this world of troubles darl

That popular admiration generally fails to hit the mark.

Thus, the raucous charlatan A. is acclaimed with fulsome adulation,

Whilst inconspicuous B. was of far greater service to the nation.

Cadmus, a most misguided man, undue renown doth get

Because that he, with misplaced zeal, invented the alphabet

Much greater praise should Cadmus win, that nobly he forbore,

After concocting sixteen letters, from doing any more.

Then unto Palmades moderation was unknown

His passion for writing letters plagued not editors alone;

The Gods’ good gift to Greece, restraint, by him was badly missed—

The cow made a lot of aspirates, and added them to the list.

Rather than sing of these, my pen shall praise a humbler man

Who did his little bit to further Evolution’s plan,—

Praise him, all ye who ever studied Greek or Latin grammar,

That unassuming, unknown scribe who managed to drop Gamma

There have been merry Irish wakes, and tangis running beer,

And I suppose when Nero died not many shed a tear

But of all the happy funerals, the one that takes first place

Must surely have been the obsequies at the death of th Locative Case.

79

A MORAL POEM ABOUT LOST ANTIQUITIES

I don’t go much on Cicero. A man should draw the line

At him and Plant and Seneca, and such pretentious swine.

They’ve lost some scraps of Virgil. I wish they’d lose the lot.

My favourite books of Livy are the ones we haven’t got.

Fair fall the Alexandrians, and their frisky little ways!

Here’s to their great destructor, and the stuff that fed the blaze.

Of making books there is no end; study’s a weariness.

My blessing on the people who make books and study—less.

Talking about the Canon: I am not convulsed with woe

Because the Book of the Wars of the Lord is gone; why, let it go!

I sigh for no fifth Gospel, nor for logia gone astray.

From Genesis to Revelation’s plenty, any day.

Yes, considering how much worse, in various ways, might be our lot,

Had Fate increased the things we have by the things which we have not,

We cannot be too thankful that in ancient historee

There were one or two stray citizens who displayed philanthropee.

C.U.C. Review.

80

To a Young Lady just entering the University

Be good, sweet child; don’t try to be attractive.

Go soher-elad, not peacock-like arrayed.

And so grow wise, plain, and remain for ever

A nice. .old. .maid.

Olla Podrida (1919)

Two Miniatures

Engineering potentate, bulging in the waist-coat

Clumping down the corridors with firm, proud tread,

With a glare for his lecturers,

Morrison, Bamford,

Filling all his greasers with stark, chill, dread.

Little under-graduate, fresh from the High School,

Looking very funny in a brand new gown,

With an armful of text-books.

Note-books, pencils,

Feeling very conscious her hair’s still down

Olla Podrida (1919)

81

The Rhyme of the Rector who might have been, is not, and won’t be.

The Board thought of getting a man

As rector (an excellent plan)

To buck up the College, and ladle out knowledge

And so their advertisement ran:—

‘We want an illustrious

Very industrious

Rector for C.U.C.”

They wondered what wages they’d say,

And decided, for once in a way,

To fix on a figure a little bit bigger

Than they were accustomed to pay

For this very desirable

Mayhe acquirable

Rector of C.U.C.

But now the Professors grew hot,

And reckoned the wages they got

Should be in proportion, and took the precaution

Of telling the Board they would not

Take less than a noodle-ish

Quite over-boodle-ish

Rector of C.U.C.

So the Board abandoned the scheme,

Knuckled down to its mutinous team

Of angry Professors, but we (God bless us!)

Are robbed of our exquisite dream

82

THE RHYME OF THE RECTOR

Of a perfectly beautiful

Noble and dutiful

"Wholly omniscient

Very efficient

Nice and delectable

Fairly respectable

Gentle and lenient

Rather convenient

Handsome, athletical

Saintly, poetical.

Quite hypothetical

Rector of C.U.C.

J. 11. E. Schroder

83

Song of the Dissolute Young Man

(Expressly written for the good of your souls, the arresting of back sliders, and the furtherance of the Millenium.)

When I came to College I made up my mind

(I hope yon are following me?)

To put in a year of the usefullest kind;

(I hope you are following me)

To absorb all the facts I could possibly get,

Attend all the lectures and keep out of debt,

Above all, to avoid the frivolous set

I hope you are following me)

But I hadn’t been here much more than a week

I hope you are following m

When I found that such virtue was purely a freal

(I hope you are following me)

And now I’m a reckless and idle young man,

I bunk Arnold Wall and I scorn Henry Dan

And I’m going to the devil as fast as I can

(I hope you are following me?)

J. 11. E. Schroder

84

Ode to a Certain Professor

I’m in the Dickens of a seot,

Professor, you have raised my wrath!

I’ll show that I for one can not

Be called a Goth

I kept a journal when a lad

In which this entry still remains:—

“Your comedies are not so bad

Aristophanes

Though loving Shakespeare, I confess

I thought his work was trash beside

Horace’s passionate address

To Lyde.

And often by the sad sea wave

(Meanwhile devouring whelks and cockles)

I’d read the glorious deeds of brave

Old Themistocles.

I’d better stop, because you know

Politeness before anger fades,

I might be rude and bid you go

To Hades.

C.U.C. Review.

85

Nursery Rhymes

(Thoroughly revised, and suitable for an age of science.)

A little Zygnema

Sat up on her beam-a.

All on a bright summer’s day

A rude young Navicula

Started to ticula,

And seared Miss Zygnema away.

The amoeba and the scientist

Walked pseudopod in hand,

They smiled like anything because

Their clothes were very grand,

‘ 1 Though times are hard, ’ ’ the amoeba said

‘We still can buy such things

As shirts and hens and shaving soap.

And cheese and wedding rings.”

The doctor had a diatom,

Its shell was made of flint,

A ton of bricks fell on its back,

And made a norful dint

C.U.C. Review

86

Lines to the Drama Society

It’s several years now since a few of ns,

Interested in contemporary drama,

Would sometimes be so hold as to discuss

Producing something; but in moments calmer,

Our courage dwindled. Now the thing we planned

(And would have failed in, if we had begun it)-

Young wearers of the buskin, noble band,

You’ve gone and done it!

At best we hoped to stage a single play

Hobbling in unimaginative strictures,

We never dreamed of heights achieved to-day

Of lectures, helped by magic lantern pictures,

Of meetings every other Wednesday night,

Of papers, readings, regular discussions

Of Brieux, Strindberg, Ibsen, and the quite

Delightful Russians.

So we, whose weakling scheme was bom to die,

Watch with a hope that almost grows ecstatic

Watch with a friendly—nay, avuncular eye

The doings of the C.U.C. Dramatic

Who knows what shining glory lies in front ?

Perhaps ’twill even he of such importanc

As wins a headline, through some startling stunt

In Johnny Norton’s.

“Candida” ’s promised: may we hope to see

(Of course we deprecate excessive hurry)

Greek tragic art—say the “Antigone,”

As Englished by Professor Gilbert Murray?

Have glimpses that will make us less forlorn

Of Schnitzler’s things and those of Granville Barker

Or something—why not Hauptmann’s “Ere the Dawn”— A little darker?

87

LINES TO THE DRAMA SOCIETY

Galsworthy, too: “ The Silver Box,” and “Strife,”

And “Joy” are rather nice—we wait them itchily

And Strindberg’s “Julia,” or “The Country Wife,’

A rather funny thing by William Wycherly;

And Synge’s queer “Playboy of the Western World,

(It’s full of all the quaintest Irish swearing),

Is a bomb that’s simply pleading to be hurled

By r College daring.

And may we yet see College life refined,

Cleansed by the spirit of the modern drama?

See Rolleston turn to pleasures of the mind,

And Connon Hall grow wiser, gentler, calmer

See Wilde and Yeats in every flapper’s hand

Tchekov engross the penitent Corellian,

And undergrads, look eager, tense, and grand

A trifle Shelleyan ?

J. H. E. Schroder.

88

"Intrant Animalia..."

Etsi minime me fallit, lector benevole, sapientes nostros solere in atrium intrare praeposteros, poeticae tamen inversioni ignoscas velim; non quo Apollini me dicatum existimem, quippe cuius pedestris, sicut Flacci, humi serpat oratio. et si quid aliud forte reprenderis, detur, obsecro, petenti venia. vale.

It primum ante alios, magna eomitante caterua,

purpuream indutus uestem titulosque superbos,

ipse pater rectorque domus; non ille ferarum

uiscera rimari refugit nee findere ranas.

heu! tantam potuit doctrina afferre malorum!

insequitur uictor bellis insignis, et olim

Germanis elarus spoliis; nunc Marte Latinos

eonstemat iuuenes uerbosaque fulmina torquet

dein uideas Hebetem fallentem nomine circum;

montiuagum et Murum, collectis laetum amaranthis.

Nec non Celsus adest, librorum pastus aceruis,

et Sapiens noster, cui maxima cura deorum,

incedit Stygios imitatus Caluus odores

pugnantesque crepans atomos. uestigia cuius

Concha premit, nulla, ut perhibent, non callidus arte.

Herculeos referens—o dique deaeque—labores!

elarus ab Heetoreis sequeris, Longinque, tropaeis,

laudibus et multi sublatus ad aethera amici

proximus ille Alpes lustrat camposque iaeentes,

cui data templorum et ueterum custodia rerum

ultimus, at minime minimus, nuperque reeeptus

dinorum in coetum, graditur non passibus aequis,

qui dominos operasque docet socialia iura,

dum studet —heu frustra —tristes componere lites.

unus abest, doctus numeris, patriamque reuisens

otia discipulis peperit gratamque quietem.

H. D. Broadhead.

89

Iste Professor

An Experiment in the Sapphic Metre.

Wordy Professor, whither art thou tending?

"Where, in the name of angels and of devils,

"Where, in the name of the palaces infernal—

Where art thou tending?

Why dost thou ever, spouting like a kettle

Praising the things which thy predecessors praised,

Carefully repressing all originality,

Talk through thy headgear?

Tell me, Professor, dost thou think thou helpest

Those who are placed beneath thy care paternal,

Either to knowledge, or to get a 8.A.,

They meanwhile groaning?

Thou hast omitted the things which were thine to say,

And thou hast said the things thou should’st not have said

Filling our time and our brains and our notes with

Meaningless details.

Now, then, away with thee, voluminous Professor,

I have enough of thy facts and thy chronology;

I have enough of thy slow, solid movement,

Plodding and powerfuli;

I tire of hearing thee defend the indefensible,

Just because antiquated dons have defended it;

I have a lot of it at home on my book-shelves—

Get thee to blazes!

90

"Ode to Infinity"

My heart sinks, and a weary languor seems

To numb me, Sammy-Steele-wards slinking slow

To reckon out the strains in divers shafts

(Given the load P) —if they stand or fall.

’Tis not through envy of thy happy lot

(Nor yet that I object to Sammy’s lore)

That, 0 ye “ Art”-ful ones of Canty. Coll.,

In some nook-shotten spot

Where Percy is not, nor stage 3 exists,

Ye sing of toil—nor wot ye what toil means,

Infinity! Oh, how I shy at thee

(Forced by hard fate to study thee most days

And devious are the ways that lead to thee!

Mine the dull brain that cannot love thy ways.

I’m always with thee! If I do my trig,

Or else try working out hydraulic sums

I still bump up against infinity

(And still I find no light)

Save what mayhap old Pendlebury sheds

In darkling rays on our devoted heads.

Oh, for a look at papers (not yet set),

Bom long ago of some Professor’s brain,

Smacking of musty tomes, examples weird

(E’en snails that climb up poles for evermore)—

For just one look at them, and having looked

Quick should I slip away as any cat,

And quick swot up the questions printed there

(Lest I forget)

And write full swift, and leave the hall in glee—

And escort beauteous damosels to tea

91

D

“ ODE TO INFINITY ”

Rankling, I listen, and full many a time

I am at sea to all that Percy saith;

Call him sweet names in many a muttered rhyme

For talking in the air, beneath my breath,

I don’t care now when my time comes to die,

For I shall then be at infinity,

And know its secrets (till now hid from me),

If it be “plus” or “minus”—

Still he’ll talk on, and others hear with pain

What happens to good parallels when they die

Thou wast not meant for mirth, Infinity!

(Thou bourne of all good parallels—bad ones, too—)

The examples set this blessed night were set

Years since, and angry students took them down.

Mayhap the self-same sum was one-time set

To Prof. Gabbatt, who chuckled (wily man!)

To think how simple was infinitude,

The same that oft since then

Puzzled the “Pass” man, as he chews his pen.

And asks with feeling—why he e’er was bom?

Was bom! That seems most strange, Infinity!

No souls in thy dim, mystic clime are born

The ghosts of parallels lost inhabit thee

Lost, for they met too soon), binomials tom,

Crushed by converging series that advance.

Adieu! Adieu! I see them die away,

The Gamma-functions meet them, wildly leap,

The Fourier series prance,

They fiercely fight, the noise rolls from their fray

And wakes me- —Great Math! have I been asleep?

92

The Song of the Sport

After Walt Whitman.

Who am I?

Who am I, you ask, the great, immaculate, infallible capital I? I am me.

I am the sport,

I am not such a one as takes life seriously

I do not go to the earnest piety of the C.U.,

Nor to the Dialec., except perhaps to criticise.

Nor to the irritating monologue of professors, if I can avoid it,

Nor to the sane, everyday amusements of sensible people.

I don’t think.

Rather,

To loaf,

To be a nut, and yet more than a nut

To know a thing or two,

To feel superior to the average run of people.

To put myself among the girls,

To use theological terms apart from their exact doctrinal

significance,

Above all, to play football.

Football.

The bovine mutton-headedness of it

The energy, the courage, the force,

The rush of the forwards and the quivering masculinity of the scrum,

The dashing policy of the backs,

The exclamations of the crowd,

Admonitions, objurgations, interjections,

The continuous roar of the barrackers.

The sounding kick of the ball

A sound of the tearing of linen,

93

THE SONG OF THE SPORT

The sudden sitting down of the kicker,

The referee’s whistle, the silent gathering round of the

players, the impossibility of the situation.

The final production of another pair.

This is the sum of life,

This is to live, to he a sport!

Why do I do it?

Everybody’s doing it,

Doing it

See that ragtime couple over there.

They do not think. Why should they?

They have a higher opinion of themselves than of any thinkers,

Plato, Aristotle, or Sir Robert Stout

They are above that.

They are sufficient unto themselves.

The world has nothing to offer them.

That is my ideal.

Not to be enthusiastic.

To go to the theatre, bnt in a critical mood.

To go to the football match—and what follows after.

To dress,

To walk the streets,

To have a drink.

To indulge in a mild flirtation.

This is my convention

Not to dare to be different from the others,

To compliment myself on my dashingness and my wickedness,

To feel lam a devil of a fellow,

To be a sport.

Not ’alf.

C.V.C. Review (1913

94

Tea at College

At College Tea you will not find

Old mellow wines, or silver shining.

That novel-writers bring to mind

When profiteers or peers are dining.

Yet here is mellower content

Than Burgundy or Port diffuses,

And homely ware of Stoke-on-Trent

That wise economy excuses.

Yet what wild cabaret can boast

Of such delightful tea and toast?

But choicest feast of all, to lie

With sense of genial elation.

In comatose satiety

From tea’s benign intoxication

(The fat, phlegmatic cocoa-bean

Could not aspire to leave a man in

A state so tranquilly serene

As does this blend of leaf and tannir

Fitting reward for him who dares

Interminable flights of stairs)

And thus reclined, to see begun

The fruitless search, (but still persistent)

For currants in the currant-bun.

Though time has proved them non-existent;

To watch the pot-plant’s verdure flee

Through over-frequent irrigation

With surplus saueerfuls of tea

By way of gentle stimulation

(A policy that few expound

As horticultural!/ sound.)

52

TEA AT COLLEGE

When gorged with mustier repast

(And less refreshing to the diner)

With Greek declensions or the last

Two-hundred dynasties of China;

Or if to literature inclined,

With plays of D’Avenant or Dekker,

This tea-room seems to my tired mind

A sort of gastronomic Mecca,

To which, like turbanned Moslem sage.

I thankfully make pilgrimage.

1923

W. E. Thomson

53

PART II

The Passing of the Forest

All cannot fade that glorifies the hills;

Their strength remains, their aspect of command,

Their flush of colour when calm evening stills

Day’s clamour, and the sea-breeze cools the land.

With shout of thunder and with voice of rills,

Ancient of days in green old age they stand,

In grandeur that can never know decay,

Though from their flanks men strip the woods away.

But thin their vesture now—the restless grass,

Bending and dancing as the breeze goes by,

Catching quick gleams and cloudy shades that pass.

As shallow seas reflect a wind-stirred sky

Ah! nobler far their forest raiment was,

From crown to feet that clothed them royally.

Shielding their mysteries from the glare of day,

Ere the dark woods were reft and tom away

Well may these plundered and insulted kings,

Stripped of their robes, despoiled, uncloaked, discrowned

Draw down the clouds with white enfolding wings

And soft aerial fleece to wrap them round,

To hide the scars that every season brings,

The fire’s black smirch, the landslip’s gaping wound

Well may they shroud their heads in mantle gray,

Since from their brows the leaves were plucked away!

Gone is the forest world, its wealth of life,

Its jostling, crowding, thrusting, struggling race,

Creeper with creeper, bush with bush at strife,

Warring and wrestling for a breathing space;

100

101

THE PASSING OF THE FOREST

Below, a realm with tangled rankness rife,

Aloft, tree columns, shafts of stateliest grace

Gone is the forest nation. None might stay;

Giant and dwarf alike have passed away.

Gone are the forest birds, arboreal things,

Eaters of honey, honey-sweet of song,

The tui, and the bell-bird —he who sings

That brief rich music we would fain prolong.

Gone the wood-pigeon’s sudden whirr of wings

The daring robin, all unused to wrong.

Wild, harmless, hamadryad creatures, they

Lived with their trees, and died, and passed away

And with the birds, the flowers, too, are gone,

That bloomed aloft, ethereal, stars of light

The clematis, the kowhai like ripe com,

Russet, though all the hills in green were dight;

The rata, draining from its tree forlorn

Rich life-blood for its crimson blossoms bright,

Red glory of the gorges,—well a-day!

Fled is that splendour, dead and passed away.

Gone are the forest tracks, where oft we rode

Under the silver fern-fronds climbing slow.

In cool, green tunnels, though fierce noontide glowed

And glittered on the tree-tops far below.

There, ’mid the stillness of the mountain road.

We just could hear the valley river flow,

Whose voice through many a windless summer day

Haunted the silent woods, now passed away.

Drinking fresh odours, spicy wafts that blew,

We watched the glassy, quivering air asleep,

Midway between tail cliffs that taller grew

Above the unseen torrent calling deep;

THE PASSING OF THE FOREST

Till, like a sword, cleaving the foliage through,

The waterfall flashed foaming down the steep;

White, living water, cooling with its spray

Dense plumes of fragile fern, now scorched away.

Keen is the axe, the rushing fire streams bright;

Clear, beautiful, and fierce it speeds for Man,

The Master, set to change and stem to smite,

Bronzed pioneer of nations. Ay, but scan

The ruined beauty wasted in a night,

The blackened wonder God alone could plan,

And builds not twice! A bitter price to pay

Is this for progress—beauty swept away.

William Pemher Reeves

102

The Lawyer's Bride

Or, The Suit op William Styles (“Bill” —for short), Being the pleadings of a young legal practitioner to the fair

Phyllis.

Air: “Wait for the Waggon.”

Will you come with me, my Phyllis dear, and be a lawyer’s bride?

Drawn up is my conveyance, so to the church let’s ride

Oh, don’t reserve your judgment, but say you’ll marry me,

And do not let your answer be merely C.A.V

Refrain:

List to me, Phyllis, grant my petition,

Come with me, Phyllis dear, and be a lawyer’s brid

The best man, Thomas Smiles, is a fellow that you kno

And I shall have as groomsmen, John Doe and Eichard Eoe

Away you shall be given, if discover him we can

By the bonus pater familias or the average prudent man

The jovial six carpenters shall build our house, I trow

And never fear a suit for trespass ah initio.

Our goods the common carrier shall bring from divers places,

And wedding presents many, packed in Smith’s Leading Cases

If you lack occupation, in my office you shall work,

You’ll find it most engrossing, so the task you needn’t shirk

And when you’re feeling thirsty, we’ll both go to the bar.

And there we’ll take refreshers, that so customary are

Be tenant of my heart for life, Oh maiden fair and chaste,

And let my arm encircle your voluntary waste

Don’t let me be nonsuited, but listen, pray, to reasoi

Oh, grant to me your hand in fee and let me have the seisin

103

THE LAWYER’S BRIDE

I ask for an attachment, distress is all I get—

Sweet, enter satisfaction of Cupid’s judgment debt

You’ll drive me p’raps to murder, if you won’t be my wife,

And then an execution will terminate my life.

Your Bill you won’t dishonour, accept him, do, at sight

“Protest for non-acceptance” must never be my plight

But to your sweet indorsement, Oh, let me have recourse,

And let me take delivery as holder in due course.

Upon my skill in pleading you’ll surely cast no slur.

Then to my Declaration why do you thus demur?

In Cupid’s Court, my darling, be quick and prove your Will,

And none with infidelity shall ever tax your Bill

Allowing my appeal, you blushing answer “Yes,”

And now I’m plainly guilty of embracery, I guess,

But, as you know “Volenti injuria non fit,”

You waive my tort, my Darling, when my kisses you permit.

H. F. van Haast

104

105

Two Pictures

Within:—a fire, neglected, dying fast;

An untouched meal upon the table spread;

A candle, flickering as each stormy blast

Howls by; an infant in its little bed

Asleep; a pair of slippers by the fire;

A woman, kneeling by the infant’s cot

In anguish breathing out her heart’s desire

With white drawn lips, for hope she feels is not.

Without: —the first few faint gray streaks of day

The waning moon by cloud-rack drifting past

Half hid; white billows yearning for their prey,

Churned into seething foam by every blast

That shrieks and howls and leaps from sea to land

A sea-mew wheeling round with mournful cry

A shattered boat half-buried in the sand

A white, dead face turned to the cruel sky

T. W. Rowe.

Saturday Night

Saturday Night in the crowded town;

Pleasure and pain going up and down.

Murmuring low on the ear there beat

Echoes unceasing of voice and feet

Withered age with its load of care,

Come in this tumult of life to share,

Childhood glad in its radiance brief,

Happiest-hearted or bowed with grief,

Meet alike, as the stars look down

Week by week on the crowded town.

And in a kingdom of mystery,

Rapt from this weariful world to see

Magic sights in the yellow glare,

Breathing delight in the gas-lit air,

Careless of sorrow, of grief, or pain,

Two by two, again and again,

Strephon and Chloe together move,

Walking in Arcady, land of love!

What are the meanings that burden all

These murmuring voices that rise and fall?

Tragedies whispered of, secrets told,

Over the baskets of bought and sold;

Joyous speech of the lately wed;

Broken lamentings that name the dead

Endless runes of the gossip’s rede;

And, gathered home with the weekly need,

Kindly greetings, as neighbours meet

There in the stir of the busy street

106

SATURDAY NIGHT

Then is the glare of the gaslight ray

Gifted with potency strange to-day

Records of time-written history

Plash into sight as each face goes by.

There as the hundreds slow-moving go,

Each with his burden of joy or woe,

Souls, in the meeting of strangers’ eyes

Startled this kinship to recognise,

Meet and part, as the stars look down

Week by week on the crowded town

And still, in the midst of the busy hum,

Rapt in their dream of delight, they come

Heedless of sorrow, of grief, or care,

Wandering on in enchanted air,

Far from the haunting shadow of pain;

Two by two, again and again.

Strephon and Chloe together move,

Walking in Arcady, land of love

Mary Colbome-Veel.

64

The Grey Company

0 the grey, grey company,

Of the pallid dawn!

0 the ghostly faces

Ashen-like and drawn!

The Lord’s lone sentinels

Dotted down the years—

The little grey company

Before the pioneers!

Dreaming of Utopias

Ere the time was ripe,

They awoke to scorning,

To jeering and to strife

Dreaming of millenniums

In a world of wars,

They awoke to shudder

At a flaming Mars.

Never was a Luther

But a Huss was first, —

A fountain unregarded

In the primal thirst.

Never was a Newton

Crowned and honoured well,

But first a lone Galileo

Wasted in a cell.

In each other’s faces

Looked the pioneers;—

Drank the wine of courage

All their battle years.

108

E

K

THE GREY COMPANY

For their weary sowing

Through the world wide

Green they saw the harvest

Ere the day they died

But the grey grey company

Stood every man alone

In the chilly dawnlight

Scarcely had they known

Ere the day they perished

That their beacon star

Was not glint of marshlight

In the shadows far.

The brave white witnesses

To the truth within

Took the dart of folly,

Took the jeer of sin.

Crying “Follow, follow

Back to Eden gate!

They trod the Polar desert,

Met a desert fate

Be laurel to the victor,

And roses to the fair,

And asphodel Elysian

Let the hero wear

But lay the maiden lilies

Upon their narrow biers,

The lone grey company

Before the pioneers!

Jessie Mackay

109

Spring Fires

The running rings of fire on the Canterbury hills,-

Running, ringing, dying at the border of the snow

Mad, young, seeking as a young thing wills,

The ever, ever living, ever buried Long Ago!

The soft running fire on the Canterbury hills,

Swinging low the censer of a tender heathenesse

To the dim Earth goddesses that quicken all the thrills

When the heart’s wine of August is dripping from the press!

The quiet bloom of haze on the Canterbury hills!

The fire, it is the moth that is winging to the snow

0 pure red moth, but the sweet white kills!

And we thrill again to watch you, but we know, but we know!

The long yellow spurs on the Canterbury hills

To a moon of maiden promise wake once in all the year,

When the fires come again, and the little tui trills,

And who will name or think on a January sere?

The lone large flower of the Canterbury hills

On the slender ti-tree will hang her honeyed head,

When the moon of fire has called her to the spurs and the rills.

Dim and strong and typical of tintless river-bed.

The scent of burning tussock on the Canterbury hills!

The richness and the mystery that wakens like a lyr«

With the dearness of a dreaming that never yet fulfils !—-

And we know it, and we know it, but we love the moon of fire!

Jessie Mackay.

110

Slumber Song

Neither to fight nor plead, my dear!

Home to the low long nest

On the holy sod of the plains of God!

And it’s only to rest, to rest!

Neither to sift nor weigh, my dear!

Neither to sow nor reap!

For the balance is true and the sickle is through,

And it’s only to sleep, to sleep!

Neither to will nor plan, my dear!

Neither to smile nor sigh;

For home is the fruit to the altar-foot,

And it’s only to die, to die!

Jessie Machay

111

Onawe

Peaceful it is: the long light glows and glistens

On English grass;

Sweet are the sounds upon the ear that listens; —

The winds that pass

Rustle the tussock, and the birds are calling

The sea below

Murmurs, upon its beaches rising, falling,

Soft, soft, and slow. —

All undisturbed the Pakeha’s herds are creeping

Along the hill;

On lazy tides the Pakeha’s sails are sleeping,

And all is still.

Here once the mighty Atua had his dwelling

In mystery,

And hence weird sounds were heard at midnight swelling

Across the sea.

Here once the Haka sounded; and din of battle

Shook the grey crags;

Triumphant shout, and agonized death-rattle

Startled the shags.

And now such peace upon this isthmus narrow,

With Maori blood

Once red! —these heaps of stones, —a greenstone arrow

Rough-hewn and rude!

112

ON A WE

Gone is the Atua, and the hillsides lonely,

The warriors dead;

No sight, no sound! the weird wild wailing only

Of gull instead

Come not the llangatira hither roaming

As once of yore,

To dance a ghostly Haka in the gloaming

And feast once more?

Tena koe Pakeha! within this fortification

Grows English grass—

Tena koe! subtle conqueror of a nation

Doomed, doomed to pass!

Dora Wilcox

113

When Lilac Blooms

When Lilac blooms, what gambolling

In hawthorn boughs! what whirr of wing!

And in sweet-peas and mignonette,

On window-ledges quaintly set,

What hum of bees! what murmuring!

And as the lindens sway and swing,

This slow blood moves with everything;

The pulses throb with fume and fret

When Lilac blooms!

For old Love stirs and fain would sing,

And revel with the lusty Spring,—

Old Love who lingers with me yet

In this, my Garden of Regret,—

Ah Love! too late thy wakening

When Lilac blooms!

Dora Wilcox

114

Mein Kind, Wir Waren Kinder.

(From the German of Heine

My child, we were children also,

Two children small and gay

We often crept into the hen-house

Where hid in the straw we lay

We crowed aloud, and if people

Were passing along the road,

Kikereku! they fancied

It was the cock that crowed

The chest that stood in the courtyard

We carpeted throughout

It made a splendid mansion,

And we ruled in it turn about.

The old cat from the neighbour’s

Would come and visit us,

And we used to bow and receive her

With the politest fuss.

We’d ask her how she was keeping

As cosily down she sat —

Since then I’ve put the same question

To many an ancient cat

We used to sit like the old folk

And talk in accents sad,

Lamenting that since our young days

The world had gone to the bad;

72

MEIN KIND, WIR WAREN KINDER

That love and faith and honour

Had vanished from off the earth;

The coffee—how expensive!

Of money—what a dearth!

The childish play is long over,

For naught can endure Time’s scathe—

Nor gold, nor world, nor seasons,

Nor honour, nor love, nor faith.

W. D. Andrews

116

The True Immortals

“ Who can but pity the founder of the pyramids

To rank among the immortal names,

Touched with imperishable glory,

Many a one puts forward claims

Who never lived, yet lives in story

The dame who wrought the woes of Troy

The men who perished by Scamander,

As real to “Macaulay’s Boy’’

As Caesar are or Alexander

Orpheus, who from the dreary shades

Eurydice would lead to light

Jason, who in gold fleeces trades,

The King who robbed himself of sight

Before our England came to birth

Or found a place among the nations,

Were famed among the sons of earth.

Had pleased uncounted generations.

Who has not heard of Guinevere

Gawain, and Bors, and Lancelot

Of Galahad, the youth austere,

And Arthur, King of Camelot?

Or coming to a later day

When good Queen Bess the reins was holding,

Who knows not Beatrice the gay,

Sweet Rosalind, and Katharine scolding?

117

THE TRUE IMMORTALS

They press and throng upon the mind,

They come from every clime and region,

Good, bad, indifferent, cruel, kind,

In every class their name is Legion.

Among them all a foremost place

“My uncle Toby” claims, and “Yorick,’

And honest “Trim” lifts up a face

More real than many a phiz historic.

More real —for what mortal name

Touched with its perishable glory

May hope for the undying fame

Of those who only live in story—

Who come from divers times and lands,

Speaking the tongues of divers nations,

And beckon with their shadowy hands

To the successive generations?

W. D. Andrews.

118

One by One

One by one, lover and friend must go,

Tho’ in the absence sorrow will linger on

One by one, as stars in the morning glow

Tremble, and fade, and are gone.

One by one, raindrops are falling fast;

Sighs moan so low and so sad in the cold wet tree

One by one, tears fall for days that are past,

Mourning, that parting must be.

One by one. Ah, and you too must go;

You who have lingered so short and so sweet a while,

One by one, —ab, that the heart must know

Sorrow, for Pleasure’s soft smile

Johannes C. Andersen.

119

Autumn

Autumn has come from o’er the seas,

With yellow hair;

Autumn in the Antipodes,

Sweet here, as there.

The spear-head poplars’ shafts of green

Are shafts of gold,

Standing in aisles that run between

Firs, dark and cold.

With golden beaten barbs a-spring

The birches quiver,

And icy-hearted dewdrops fling

Upon the river.

Ripe rounded globes on bending stems

Grow sweet and mellow,

O’erload the drooping trees with gems

Of red and yellow

Bluff Autumn fills his coffers now,

—— .. j Till running o’er;

The season of the golden bough,

And golden store.

Ah, Autumn from across the seas,

With yellow hair;

Autumn in the Antipodes,—

Sad here, as there.

Johannes C. Andersen ,

120

Sonnet to Robert Browning

They played, I know not what, —I only know

That straight I wander o’er a meadow, starred

With asphodel and lily-cup gold-barred,

And round my head the perfumed wind-breaths blow

In gentle hushful touch—and on I go

Into this poet land and gather nard,

To crown triumphantly this prophet bard;

This welder great of thoughts that seethe and glow

Then garland-wise I wove them well, then sought

A moment’s leave to place them round thy head—

Thou victor in a thousand battles fought

For man, too blind himself to fight—too dead.

And now with lightning tipped thy pen has taught

The world to strive anew for light—God-led

Dolce Cabot.

121

Rectius Vives

Horace, odes ii., 10

Friend, steer not always for the deep,

Nor shrink, when storms pursue,

Too near false shores: so shalt thou keep

Thy bearing true.

Who loves the golden mean, aloof

From squalid hut abides,

And wisely shuns the lordly roof,

Where Envy hides.

Tall pines are tempest-tossed the worst,

High towers crash most loud;

Breaks on the mountain’s summit first

The thunder-cloud.

In ill, wise hearts hope better things,

In weal, they fear for worse;

The ugly snows one Father brings

And will disperse.

And here and now though all be wrong,

Not always lasts the woe,

"When Phoebus wakes the Muse to song

And slacks his bow

Be brave and strong in trouble’s stress

Yet wisely have a care

To reef thy sail before the press

Of wind too fair.

W. S. Morris

122

Extremum Tanain

Horace, Odes iii., 10.

Though thou wert dwelling with a savage mate

By distant Don, ’twould touch thee, Lyce, still

To see me lying thus before thy gate

Exposed to wind so chill,

Hark! the door creaks, and round thy villa fair

The trees are groaning with each gust that blows

And see, the magic of the icy air

Freezes the fallen snows.

Doff this disdain that Venus hates, maybe ;

Backward the wheel will spin and drag the rope

Thou, Tuscan bred, art no Penelope

Forbidding swains to hope.

Though vows and presents move thee not at all

Nor the grey pallor of thy lover’s face.

Nor yon Greek girl who holds thy lord in thrall—

0 show us yet some grace!

Though knotted oaks were sooner bent by prayer,

And Moorish snakes more pitiful to pain,

Be warned! my bones will not for ever bea

Thy door-step, and this rain

W. S. Marris.

123

The Casualty Lists

1915.

Our glory and our mourning is begun—

Forgive, great Mother, if for a little while

To us lone dwellers in this utmost isle

Seemed very faint and far your thundering gun,

Your war-cry, the vast legions of the Hun,

His boast, his evil threats, his cruel guile—

What time our youth, encamped by holy Nile,

Hardened them in the sandstorm and the sun.

New bonds, in battle forged, in battle tried,

And tempered with our sons’ and brothers’ blood,

Link us henceforth —our common joys and pangs;

Over ten thousand homes the dark hour hangs;

Yet through the gloom and shadow of our mood

Pierce the red rays of triumph and of pride.

Arnold Wall

124

F

A Time Will Come

1915

A time will come, a time will come,

(Though the world will never be quite the same

When the people sit in the summer sun,

Watching, watching the beautiful game

A time will come, a time will come

With fifteen stars in a green heaven.

Two to be batting, and two to judge,

And round about them the fair Eleven

A time will come, a time will come,

When the people sit with a peaceful heart

Watching the beautiful, beautiful game

That is battle and service and sport and art.

A time will come, a time will come,

When the crowds will gaze on the game and the green

Soberly watching the beautiful game.

Orderly, decent, calm, serene.

The easy figures go out and in,

The click of the bat sounds clear and well

And over the studying, critical crowds

Cricket will cast her witching spell.

Yet a time will come, a time will come,

Come to us all as we watch, and seem

To be heart and soul in the beautiful game.

When we shall remember and wistfully dream—

Dream of the boys who never were here

Bom in the days of evil chance,

Who never knew sport or easy days,

But played their game in the fields of France.

Arnold Wall

125

The Old Botanist's Farewell to the Southern Alps

Farewell to the moorlands, farewell to the mountains,

Farewell to the dark cliff and deep-shadowed dingle!

No more shall I drink from the icy cold fountains

That gush in their glory from out the grey shingle.

No more shall I watch from the high windy ridges

The cloud-shadows drifting with indolent motion

The bright silver rivers, the gossamer bridges,

The far margin lit with the gleam of the ocean

No more shall I climb in the pale dawn with passion,

The dew from the snowgrass with eager feet shaking,

And hear the nor’-west wind come charging and crashing

And break on the sharp rocks with tumult and quaking.

No more shall I see on a day of still weather

Far range upon range to infinity dwindle,

Snow-crowned and ice-girdled, all slumbering together,

Erebus and Arrowsmith, d’Archiae and Tyndall.

No more shall you charm me, dear dainty Ourisia,

You broad fields of mountain-musk starred with white blossom,

Euphrasia, Raoulia, Phyllaehne, Celmisia,

No more shall you strike the deep chord in my bosom.

No more shall I pore on the hard tawny grasses

That colour the steep spurs and long level reaches,

No more shall I haunt the high desolate passes

Where the elfinwood sprawls on the fringe of the beeches.

126

THE OLD BOTANIST'S FAREWELL

No more shall I see, as the high sun is westering,

In the steep dusky valleys that look to his setting,

Thin streams in the late light all twining and glistening,

Like threads of fine silver the purple gloom fretting.

No more shall I hear the white mountain gull crying

Among the bare rocks where the great gusts go booming

Six thousand feet up where in rough hollows lying

The broody old tarns hang a-drowsing and glooming.

I shall see them far off in the magical distance,

With bloom like a ripe plum, so fresh and so tender

They will beckon and woo me and call with insistence,

The big shining Alps in their pomp and their splendour.

But I camp no more in the beech-wooded valleys,

No more shall I sleep in the roar of the river,

Or wander alone in the cool shady alleys,

For my feet have come down to the lowlands for ever

Arnold Wall.

127

Pan

Down a west-sloping valley, by a pool

O’er-gilded by the dying summer day,

Piping alone among the sighing reeds,

Mourning for Syrinx by the water-side,

Sat Pan alone; soft on the evening breeze

His low-blown music fluted down the vale.

The trees, the rocks, all nature heard the sound,

And guessed the words he dared not speak aloud

“Oh cruel nymph, why did’st thou flee from me,

Who loved thee with the love thou did’st not know?

Who love thee still, tho ’ thou hast gone from me!

Long did I seek thee thro ’ the dark, sweet shades

Where hidden violets, in the ancient wood.

With sweet fresh fragrance fill the dewy air

Till last I found thee in the mournful reeds

That shiver coldly round the woodland pool.

And now I sit alone among the reeds

And make me pipes to voice my sad complaint

And think of thee departed.” Here the strains

Ceased, and the last notes floated down the vale

Towards the pale-green west, and fresher blew

Athwart the fragrance of that ancient wood

The evening breeze, and stirred the hollow reeds,

Making a rustling whisper through the air—

Lost Syrinx’ voice: “I prayed unto the gods

To save me, and they saved me,” and again,

“Farewell!” At this uprose the woodland god,

And passed away among the shadowy glades

Down to the western plain. And the pale light

Died in the west, and night fell on the pool,

T. M. Curnow

128

Pantoum of the Plug

0 plug, whate’er material thou’rt made of,

Whoe’er with privy paw thy sere leaves stole

From wheresoe’er thy grew—l’m not afraid of

Dry cabbage leaves or microbes, on the whole!

Whoe ’er with privy paw thy sere leaves stole,

Driven by autumn’s wandering breeze maybe,

Dry cabbage leaves or microbes on the whole Have not been found to grow on any tree

Driven by autumn’s wandering breeze mayb

Along with other things, which, far from sweet

Have not been found to grow on any tree,

I think I see thee taken from the street

Along with other things, which, far from sweet

A more fastidious man might well detest

I think I see thee taken from the street—

Like a Jack Tar in days of yore, and “pressed.”

A more fastidious man might well detest

Such gruesome compounds, hunted round about

Like a Jack Tar, in days of yore, and pressed

For service under fire, until knocked out

Such gruesome compounds, hunted round about

And such that keep nerves cool and cares from pressing;

For service under fire, until knocked out

Thou doest well—accept my heartfelt blessing!

And such that keep nerves cool and cares from pressing.

From wheresoe’er they grew, I’m not afraid of

Thou doest well—accept my heartfelt blessing.

0 plug, whate’er material thou’rt made of!

T. M. Curnow

86

Two Voices

To the brilliant streets and bustle of a city full of Spring,

To the soft, contented river, and the sleeping shining spires,

From the distant hills disrobing there are messages a-wing,

From the splendid dusks and dawnings, from the flaming sunset fires.

I have heard them through the clamour of the people, in the sun,

And the winds that whine at midnight when the city is at rest;

And the harp-strings of my heart are set a-trembling one by one

Till the sweeping of their wide and keen harmonics calls me West.

Oh, the dew of darkling mornings on the grasses green and grey!

Oh! the flush before the saffron, and the blushes of the snow!

Dark ratas stalking down the gorge (a-waiting for the day),

To the sheen of rippling waters in the shingle sweep below.

The threads of fire on mountain-sides in purple of the night—

The dusted gold of tussocks and the music of the fords—

The gorse and wattle flame that sets the dusty road alight—

The thin bright air—my harmony has all of these for chords.

But from eastward comes the call of glistening beaches, sleeping bays,

And the pale, thin, shivering grasses in the land-wind set astir;

And the lace of broken rollers, wove for us in summer days,

■When I sought my ocean mother with my love, and found her fair.

130

TWO VOICES

Oh the beach, of worlds forsaken! Oh the pressure of soft hands,

In our lotus-land of ocean, lulled to mellow minor keys!

Oh the kiss among the lupins, green among the grey of sands,

When our swaying souls were shaken in the rush of roaring seas.

How golden were the evenings in that slumbrous summer weather,

When we plucked the scarlet poppies of delight and of desire!

How musical the mornings when we wandered forth together!

All royal the sea-kingdom where our feet could never tire.

Rival chimings, murmuring still of mountain-pleasure, seadelight,

Mocking melodies of memories of what I loved the most

When morning’s golden promises have rolled away the night

It is cold in this my city, and the music all is lost

M. C. Keane.

131

Summer Longing

How well I know what I mean to do

When the long, glad days shall dawn;

When the fields drink deep of the morning dew,

And the breeze at noon-tide wanders through

A wealth of golden com,

I’ll take the easy vagrant way

Along the laughing stream;

For I know a reach where the ripples play,

And the trout leap high on a summer’s day

The grassy banks between.

The willow leans to the calling stream

That laves his mossy bole,

Where fretted shadows love to dream

At stress of noon; and the paled sunbeam

Is wine to the panting soul.

In plashing shallows still I’ll stand,

With pliant rod and creel.

And east the lure with gentle hand,

And draw the mottled prize to land

With music of the reel

When the stem old hills in the tender west

Are bathed with flooding gold,

And the gloaming casts beneath their crest

Its purple shade, I’ll leave the quest.

Oh, summer joys of old!

132

133

Upon the Hearth

Upon the hearth the wood lies piled aright,

So that, if one but came

And stooped, and touched its deadness with a light,

Sudden, what glow and flame!

Even so, my hearth is swept, my fire is laid,

Yet all is cold and dark

My spirit kneels before it, chill, dismayed

And cries, “Send, Love, thy spark.”

Laudabunt Alii

There are some that long for a limpid lake by a blue Italian shore,

Or a palm grove out where the rollers break and the coral beaches roar;

There are some for the land of the Japanee and the tea-girls’ twinkling feet;

And some for the isles of the summer sea, afloat in the dancing heat;

And others are exiles all their days, ’midst black or white or brown,

Who yearn for the clashing of crowded ways, and the lights of London town.

But always I would wish to be where the seasons gently fall

On the further Isle of the Outer Sea, the last little isle of all,

A fair green land of hill and plain, of rivers and watersprings,

Where the sun still follows after the rain, and ever the hours have wings,

With its bosomed valleys where men may find retreat from the rough world’s way,

Where the sea-wind kisses the mountain wind between the dark and the day.

The combers swing from the China Sea to the California coast,

The North Atlantic takes toll and fee of the best of the Old World’s boast,

And the waves run high with the tearing crash that the Capebound steamers fear—

But they’re not so free as the waves that lash the rocks by Sumner pier,

And wheresoever my body be, my heart remembers still

The purple shadows upon the sea, low down from Sumner hill.

134

LAUDABUNT ALII

The warm winds blow through Kuringai; the cool winds from the south

Drive little clouds across the sky by Sydney harbour-mouth

But Sydney Heads feel no such breeze as comes from nor’-west rain

And shakes the pines and the bue-gum trees by hill and gorge and plain,

And whistles down from Porter’s Pass, over the fields of wheat,

And brings a breath of tussock grass into a Christchurch street.

Or the East wind dropping its sea-bom rain, or the South wind wild and loud

Comes up and over the waiting plain, with a banner of driving cloud;

And if dark clouds bend to the teeming earth, and the hills are dimmed with rain,

There is only to wait for a new day’s birth and the hills stand out again.

For no less sure than the rising sun, and no less glad to see

Is the lifting sky when the rain is done and the wet grass rustles free.

Some day we may drop the Farewell Light, and lose the winds of home—

But where shall we win to a land so bright, however far we roam ?

We shall long for the fields of Maoriland, to pass as we used to pass

Knee-deep in the seeding tussock, and the long lush English grass;

And we may travel a weary way ere we come to a sight as grand

As the lingering flush of the sun’s last ray on the peaks of Maoriland.

A. E. Currie

135

The Reformer

The harbour was a dreaming lake

Of quiet water brimming,

Where, all alone, a kittiwake

Was delicately swimming.

Her quick feet made a double fret,

Dark threads upon a coverlet,

Whose level blue was overset

With points of silver trimming.

The blue eyes of the sleepy sea Smiled lazily.

The kittiwake swam here and there

With purposeful endeavour;

Her dainty consequential air

Showed pride in being clever;

Her breast, she knew without a doubt,

Had rubbed the ocean wrinkles out,

And all the waters round about

Would now be smooth for ever

The grey eyes of the watching sea

Smiled thoughtfully.

The hurrying dawn was pale with pain.

Wind-furies, harshly crying,

Tossed on the pier a draggled skein

Of feathers, slackly lying.

Like a street hag whose hideous sleep

Marks the drear end that high days reap,

The kittiwake lay still—a heap

Of brave dreams, drably dying

The green eyes of the wanton sea Smiled carelessly.

0. N. Gillespie ,

136

Six-Thirty

The hilltop street lamp, suddenly in jest

Flicks out the pale flame of the climbing moon.

And twilight, dropping from a cloud balloon

Sets off as postman with a bag of rest

And I’m on the ferry where neighbourly fun

Is sign that the day’s drab flurry is done.

The hill-dames round the harbour sit and smile,

Green grannyhoods with earth-glee quivering;

They gossip slyly on the one droll thing-

That men must leave their ledgers for a while.

And both ferry funnels wave fat plumes of smoke

To show they have fathomed the hills’ fine joke.

The fond Bay stretches out his warm brown arms.

And from them slips that ready flirt, the pier.

Coquettishly, as we draw slowly near,

She stirs to make parade of all her charms

And home thoughts like stars dance in everyone’s face.

As steamer and pier hug in shameless embrace.

Soon all the hill’s awink with window eyes,

Warm eyes that watch beside the waiting doors,

That hide joy-brimmed, ecstatic pinafores.

And so I’m singing, swinging up the rise!

I’ll soon have one knuckle delightfully in

The tiny cleft curve of my baby’s chin

0. N. Gillespie

137

Evensong

Sing a song of washing-up—shining clean plates

Chattering together like a crowd of old mates

Buxom cups and saucers, and little white bowls

Purely and demurely bright like little girl-souls.

Hear the hymn to cosiness

The tinkling dishes chime

Ringing in the doziness

Of evening time.

Mollie-of-the-wise-eyes leaves her hard sum,

In important apron she is helping mum

All of us are washing up: big and small folks

Sharing and comparing all the home-sweet jokes.

Hear the speech to cosiness

The doting kettle speaks,

Babbling of the rosiness

Of maiden cheeks.

Lamplight on the busy hands that fold the teacloths

Magically turns them into flitting gold moths.

Round me all the comfortable gods of home things

Flick away the fusses of the day with blithe wings.

Ring the chimes for cosiness

And sweetly humdrum times,

Passing-bells for prosiness And high-flown rhymes.

0. N. Gillespie

138

Arcady

Where grassy meadows skirt the way,

Where daphne grows by hedge and tree

Where crickets sing the livelong day,

And gaily hums the pilfering bee;

Where pipes in old-world melody

Sound sweet upon the broad, sweet wind

There lies the land of Arcady,

Which I shall never find.

Sleeping or waking, night or day,

That haunting dream comes back to me,

Borne on the wings of some old lay,

From ancient lands across the sea

And, fruitless tho’ the vision be.

There comes a longing to my mind

For that sweet land of Arcady,

Which I shall never find.

Where lies that land? I cannot say—

Far, far, beyond Earth’s boundary

And he must tread a weary way,

Whoe’er its peaceful plains would see

devious paths of mystery

That thro’ the realms of Nowhere wind.

He’ll reach that land of Arcady

Which I shall never find.

L’Envoi

Far off, in realms of reverie,

By slow, full, rivers meadow-lined,

There lies that land of Arcady

Which I shall never find.

139

Ecce Homo

Nay, what is this that I have seen to-day?

My turn of duty done, I loitered towards

The City gate that looks to Calvary,

And there saw crowds, and marching men-at-arms.

’Twas Casca’s maniple, so I went to see.

(They cannot equal mine—shields dull, greaves loose,

Breastplates ill-fitted.) They were leading forth

A criminal to crucifixion, one

Who claimed, they said, to be a mighty King,

Immortal. Now he paced behind them, bowed

Beneath two cedar beams, whose weight he bore.

Blood-stained his forehead from a wreath of thorns

Placed there in jest by our rough lads:—his back

Scarred with the scourge-wounds, and the swarthy face

Darkened by many suns, but pale—and yet—

I know not how—as full I met its gaze

Was that that made me feel like a whipped boy

That glance did look into my inmost soul

All evil erewhile done rose to my mind.

And then I looked again, and straightway thought

Of her that bare me, loved me as her life,

And of Crispinus, more than dear to me —

More dear than fifty brothers, my one friend.

My heart leapt: I would save this man—“Ho, Casca,

Let the man—” Then the grip of discipline

Did freeze my tongue, and Casca, turning, smiled,

And mocked me. “What, Licomius, drunk ere noon!”

And so the swarthy Galilean passed

That claimed to be a King, yea, more—a God.

I’ve stood in the Praetorian Guard, and seen

Augustus Cffisar of the race of Gods,

In mail of burnished gold and purple robe

Yet this man, spite of shame, disgrace, nigh death,

97

o

98

ECCE HOMO

Bereft of all the ornaments of man

Was thirty-thousand times more like a God

Than thirty Caesars —Nay, I cannot rest;

Strange longings and new fears oppress my sold

I cannot pray to Caesar. “0 great Jove

Aye, Zeus all-powerful—” All my words, alas,

Are empty sounds. 0 mock me not, ye Gods

Stay, there is that man: Thou whose gaze I met-

, And something tells me that Thou dost know me-

If in pale Orcus Thou art living still.

No help in heaven and none in earth I find,

Help, Galilean, for my heart believes.

T. E. Currie

Non Omnis Moriar

(Horace, Odes iii., 30.)

I’ve made a monument than bronze more lasting;

Than regal pyramid more highly placed;

By raging north-wind, flight of time, nor wasting

Of showers, nor countless years, to be defaced.

I shall not wholly perish: part surviving

Shall ’scape the deathful Goddess, and live still,

In praise of future ages ever thriving,

While priest and mute maid climb Jove’s Holy Hill.

Where Daunus thirsts, his rustic kingdom ruling,

Where rages Aufidus in angry foam,

I shall be told, though low-bom, first in schooling

The strains of Greece to lend their tunes to Rome.

Take, Muse, as thine own due this proud renown,

And grant me, of thy grace, Apollo’s crown.

T. E. Currie.

99

Light and Shade

After the sunshine, shadow,

After the blue sea, grey,

After the sunset, moonrise,

And the sea a silvered way.

After the gay, the soft lights,

Rose and lilac and blue

After the bright, the dark sky

And the white stars shining through.

After the voices, silence,

After the work-time, dreams

After the task, the fireside,

Embers and warmth and gleams.

After the mirth, the hush-fall

After the playing, rest,

After the turmoil, quiet,

But sleep, after all, is best

Irene Wilson

143

My Pool

There stands a little, silent pool

Deep-dwelling in my heart;

Crystal its waters are, and cool.

Shut-off from the world—-apart It stands,

My little pool—apart.

Tall, slender tree-trunks ring it round,

Through them the sunbeams creep;

Nor ever comes an alien sound

To break upon its sleep, So still

My pool is, and so deep.

Pale flowers look up, sweet and shy,

Where rustling grasses grow

And fair white cloudlets, sailing high,

Upon the waters throw

Their shade

And fleck the deeps helow

Its waters rise with healing balm,

Drawn from unmeasured springs;

And there my soul is lapp’d in calm

And joy of quiet things,

And rests

Beneath God’s folded wings.

From dust and drought of weary days,

From tasks that never cease,

I still can travel hidden ways

To instant, sure release,

And find

My pool,—my pool of Peace

Irene Wilson

144

Autumn in Christchurch

Now from the taper-fingers of the trees,

How thick are strewn the gaudy shapes of gold,

Once summer leaves a-tremble in the breeze

Restoring now their treasure to the mould.

Now the red berries revel on the hedge,

And apple-cheeks are blushing as the rose;

Purple and pale, the starry eosmea spreads

Her tall bouquets within the garden-close.

In graceful pride the rare chrysanthemums

Their many-petalled crowns awhile shall wear

Beside the stream a fair procession comes

Where toi-tois toss their silken hair;

And songs of birds at eve too wistful thrill,

When the spent sunshine pales upon the hill.

Nellie Macleod.

145

Hougomont, 1815

“ La plaine, la plaine,

Immensement & perdre la halein

Emil Verhaeren,

The West wind rolls in riot from the sea

Pouring grey air across the Belgian plain,

The plain, enormous, dim, immense, inane,

Like the wide ocean of eternity.

And by one plumy poplar I saw stand

A. blackened cottage on a little hill,

No fire upon the hearth, and all things still,

No patient peasant toiling at the land.

No windows glow: the bitter wind sweeps through;

The earth is strewn with ashes grey and white.

The posts hang charred; the quick red lines of light

Slumber and smoulder, fall and glow anew

So stands the ruin; and the winds roam by

The clouds gloom low: the sun is sinking fast;

And on the hill of Hougomont a vast

And towering phantom strikes against the sky.

“I prophesy a red apocalypse

There shall be doom on every pleasant thing,

There shall be fear on emperor and king,

And fear by sea upon all merchant ships.

“Seven times have I this little peaceful hill

With scarlet surge of armies overdrown’d;

And here stand I with fire and iron crown’d,

Here on my holy hill I stand to kill.

146

lIOU GO MONT

“The glory of the fields is eaten away,

The red fire creeps by cottage timbers old,

It tops the minster with a crown of gold,

And all in smoke and ashes shall decay.”

There came a stir amid the growing dark

And a white figure rising in the gloom,

Shadowy like a ghost in some old room

When light is waned away to one dull spark

“Alas; this is my holy hill of peace,

This hut, my temple of the ancient years,

And thou a brumal phantom that appears

Only to fade away if light increase

“The fire shall kindle on my hearth agair

And the blue smoke drift up into the sky;

But thou in all thy vanity shalt die,

And men pass by who seek for thee in vain.”

The sun blazed red upon the western rim,

And threw upon the low and blackened sky

Webs of blood-red, red phantoms floating by

And a red glare amid the valleys dim

Men never seek for me in vain,” he cried.

“My sons of blood spring upward from the soil

Destroy your work and slow laborious toil

In one superb catastrophe of pride.

“Dig patiently, dear maid, the stubborn clay;

For though you dig your furrows deep and sure,

One thing there is that ever shall endure—

The blood that I have poured thereon this day.”

04

HOUGOMONT

White in the gloaming her one light shone fair,

Her one white flame, one spark or tiny star,

As that which tells the mariner from afar

That some black coast-line is not wholly bare.

“ ’Twas I,” she said, “who helped man’s infant race,

Who carved him out a cave in dark despair,

Who gave him fire, and bade him settle there

Conquering a little colony of space.

So by my arts he grew in his endeavour.

He tamed the brutes, wrought out the whirring loom

Spread, as he went, my empire through the gloom,

And that shall stand, 0 that shall stand for ever.

“Thine empire cannot stand: it falls away;

It leaps and dies the moment it attains.

The flame sucks back; death ends all bitter pains,

So passes like a shadow all thy day.”

Only a tempest of black atmosphere

With waning veins and ribbons of bright red

Tossed in the stormy heavens overhead

But the invisible voice resounded clear.

“It shall not pass, the Day; it has not come

I prophesy a red apocalypse

On every land, upon all seas and ships,

When the Day shall come, and the Day shall come

“For a darkness of night hath fallen down,

An evil night upon city and town,

When the Devil shall wax, and God shall wane,

And men look up for the light in vain

Prophets of evil things shall come

When the Day is come, when the Day is come.

105

HOUGOMONT

“Oh sorrow and sin the darkness brings

When kings and the ministers of kings

Shall weave in a deep conspiracy

Plots of evil by land and sea.

And greed shall grow in iniquity,

When the Day of the Lord is come

“Wars and the rumours of wars shall be,

Fighting by land, and fighting by sea

Lands shall be stolen, and arms wax great

And a prince be killed by guile and by hate. Ha! Ha!

I shall stamp my foot, and beat my drum

For the Day shall come, the Day shall come.

“Here shall I stand, and loud rejoice;

And the nations all shall hear my voice.

The Prussian Savage shall wake again.

And his hosts roll down from the Baltic plain;

He shall come with the Princes of Germany,

And the Turk his comrade in arms shall be,

When the Day of the Lord is come.

“I shall stamp my foot, and the Turk shall come

And the Indian come, and the Arab come;

I shall stamp my foot, and beat my drum,

And men shall spring up from over the seas,

From the furthest isles of tropic trees,

When the day of the Lord is come

“Blood in the earth, and blood in the air,

, 7 And buried death as a hidden snare;

Death in the sea, and under sea,

And murder hid in mystery,

When I stamp my foot, and beat my drum

And the Day is come, and the Day is come.

149

HOUGOMONT

One spark but lit the darkness, and one sound,

One sweet strong voice that sang a happy strain

Of homely things returning once again,

And holy rites again on holy ground.

“0 bind the earth with iron bands,

And hide the sun with dust;

But God works in the darkness

As all His children must

“And though thy phantom armies

Crowd all the sky above,

Christ, praying in Gethsemane,

Works still the law of love.

“Men shall arise in England,

And a man in Italy,

With a tossing sea of voices,

Tumultuous to be free.

“Kings and their thrones shall totter,

Sick with a mortal dread;

And Liberty again in France

Lift up her stricken head.

“And out of ancient Russia

Shall be heard a voice of pain

And at the last a prophet

Preach ancient things again.

“The men of the new universe

Shall bow the knee to thee,

But in the temple of the heart

Shall worship only me.

“But they shall die, and I shall die

In the ruin of thy Day

150

HO U GO MONT

This hill shall then be Calvary

For ever and for aye.

“A million times I take my cross :

And they shall follow me

A million times I die again

Until I conquer thee.”

So spoke these spirits standing on the plain,

One to another as the darkness grew,

Till all the air was of so black a hue

That power of human eye was but in vain.

Then came a sound confused of marching throngs,

Armies and mobs; and evil wings brushed by.

A thundering and whir was in the sky,

A sound of multitudinous battle songs

What phantoms were they? Peace and War maybe

Or Right and Evil, yea, or Right and Might—

I cannot tell; nor dare a name to write

For those whose names the darkness hid from me.

I only know that at the last shall stand

A timbered cottage on a little hill.

A fire upon the hearth, a loom, a mill,

And weapons for the tilling of the land.

The windows glow, the goodwife standing by—

And coming home from mighty wars and great

The warrior watches, standing at the gate,

The blue smoke drift into the windy sky

Philip Carrington

Desire

My body walks in England

By little village stiles

But my spirit goes a journey

Of thirteen thousand miles.

For daily as I wander here

In rain or fine or red,

My spirit walks by Cashmere Hill,

Or Kowai river-bed.

The tufted grass is yellow

With silken silver gleams.

And the tawny hills are high and steep

In the country of my dreams.

Dry is the stony stream that once

Tumultuously ran

But the reeds of flax along its bed

Are tall as any man.

And out of pale green leaves of it

Clear in the golden light,

The slender stems of pampas grass

Wave tassels silken white.

Oh would that I with fleshly eyes

Could gaze upon the plain,

The silver-sliding river

And ocean once again

152

no

DESIRE

See the great sun descend on it

Behind the peaks of snow

And the hundred miles of mountain

Blush in the afterglow

But, oh, I walk in England

Under green English trees

And only send my spirit

Across the seven seas.

Philip Carrington.

Salisbury, Easter, 1915.

Rangiora

The land has no antiquity

'Said the little voice in my head.)

After all it has no history

(No history, it said.)

I was riding along by Rangiora,

And considering how through endless blue August days

I had ridden from village to village

In the holy land of England;

And every fold in the ground,

And every turn in the road

Was full of remembrances and histories.

And that is why the voice said, No history.

No history it said,

But what is history?

So I looked at the sacred fields of harvest

Consecrated by the labour of man and the blessing of

heaven,

And strove to see their story.

And I saw the swamp and the bush, of long ago

And the wild brown marsh birds flying to and fro,

The bittern and the heron, and the owl,

And all the clutter of screaming river-fowl,

As man rides into the silent sanctuaries

And pools of the wood, paddling his own canoe,

To build his hut, and plant the kumara,

And little wild children playing in the trees.

So the Maori heads tbe procession.

That consecrates this land with labour and blood.

154

RANGIORA

Then come the white men with the axe and gun,

And the birds are killed, and the trees lie low in the sun,

And the ground is cleared and stubbed and burned and drained;

And each descending day

Is another chapter in history,

And another acre gained,

And the long march goes on

They come with harrow and plough: with pick and spade they come,

No music with their march, no bugle and no drum

No colours swinging high, no clapping, and no cry

No ribbons and streamers gay

They march through glory of sunny summer days,

Through streams of pouring rain,

Through frosts that bind the plain

With horse and dog they ride uneven ways;

By pain they attain,

And labour and agony

This is the high procession that I saw

(And would love to draw)

Wind round the paddocks by the gorse fence edge

Blessing the boundary hedge,

And consecrating it with sweat and blood

Who made that poplar grove?

And drew those lines of oaks

That stiffly hide the little house of wood

Whose hearthfire dimly smokes

A cloudy blue?

I crept up, too,

And peeped in at the window that I might see

What lovely mystery

Was planted there, Worth so much agony

And guarded with such care.

155

H

RANGIORA

And there I saw a mother mild,

And in her lap a little child,

With the loveliness that Mary wore

In the stable of Bethlehem.

And this most lowly mystery

Is the end of every history

That every man shall come to adore

In the stable of Bethlehem.

Philip Carrington

156

Nocturne

The deep, quiet heart of night beats soft; dim stars,

Faint with the beauty of the new-ris’n moon,

Hang in the mystery of heaven. Streams

Unheard by day, to whose most sweet music

The night gives ear, hurry in quick laughter

Down to the shore—to lose themselves in sand.

Here little waves creep in by one and one,

Subdued almost to silence, and yet ripple

Like the low laugh of children’s secret games.

Quiet else the hay, untroubled, breathing peace;

And far across the water, veiled in mists,

— ~ * > ' V —WV. The jewelled city sleeps, forgetting woe.

The majesty of the encircling hills

Falls like a blessing on shore, city, bay

Stilling the awakened heart in holy awe,

So fair, so awful is it, so serene,

The visible face of God—Yet must we forth,

And may not linger idly, up and out

Out where the harbour opens, and the ships

Pale in the blue immeasurable unknown

But not unarmed, for in our hearts we bear

Unfading, all the glory of this night

That when the great world turns to us a face

Unlovely, when all we see, women, ■mien.

Seem gross, and greedily seeking, find not,

The cry of crowded cities racking nerves

Stretched to the knowledge of old evil

First seen, we may have vision and keep faith,

And, scorning not, remember these are part—

If noble in naught else, noble in this—

Part of the same world, and their part ordained

With the pure heavens and the gracious hills.

11.M.h

157

R1

"A Very Gallant Gentleman" (On the Death of Captain Oates.)

Alone he went into the cold, white land,

The calm face turning ever towards his goal.

There was a patient glory in his eyes;

There was the light of Life that never dies;

There was a kindly love within his soul;

And Resolution walked at his right hand.

Swiftly he strode; and the cold, glittering world

Stretched snowy arms to beat him back; but yet

Nor utter weariness, nor utter pain,

Nor fear, nor death, could turn him back again;

Still in the way his feet he firmly set

And faced the winds that round about him hurled.

Ere the storm ceased, and the new day began

His walk was ended, and the path he trod

Was covered with the lightly-falling snow:

A warrior had fought his fight—and lo!

O’er the white world, straight to the Throne of God,

There walked a very gallant gentleman.

158

The Street

Long hours the asphalt, grimed, blistered, and old,

A weary monotone of endless gray,

Smoulders in dull hostility. The day

Mocks, in a challenging splendour blue and gold,

The humbled ugliness; and then the bold

Vagabond wind flings in its face his stray

Litter of insults; urchin dust-whirls play

Their fitful games in the gutters... .But, behold—

The dusk falls, and along the purpling street

Night strews her silence: cool and still, the air

Enfolds the throbbing hours in a soft

Forgetfulness. The kindly shadows meet

In noiseless converse, and the lamps aloft

Caress with silver pavements suddenly fair.

J. H. E. Schroder.

116

Triolets

You ask me why I love, dear heart,

\ our lightest look, and word, and smile....

I love you when with pretty art

You ask me why. I love, dear heart,

Your wide dark eyes, your lips apart,

Your lissom grace’s every wile.

You ask me why? I love, dear heart,

Your lightest look, and word, and smile.

Can it be love that makes the world go round?

I read it in a book—and*so, I wonder!

And is the riddle’s answer really found?

Can it be love? That makes the world go round?

Suppose the theory true (it might be sound)

Astronomy must have made a frightful blunder!

Can it be love that makes the world go round?

I read it in a book.* and so I—wonder.

If all the water turned to beer,

How very drunk we’d all become!

Some people would be awful queer

If all the water turned to beer!

What jolly lectures we should hear

From profs, (oh joy!) no longer glum....

If all the water turned to beer

How very drunk we’d all become!

J. H. E. Schroder.

160

"God the Invisible King"

The novel-reading world was stunned When Mr. Wells

Invented sex. He writes about it still— Because it sells.

More startling yet the book (three hnud red pages odd)

Whose purport seems to be that Wells has now Invented God.

161

The Answer

Oh, they often talk about her of an evening in the tap-room,

And they wonder where her bones are lying now,

With her rigging and her cordage all a-rotting, all a-rotting,

And the question still unanswered on her prow

Oh, she once belonged to Smithson when he bartered round the Islands,

And he plied her in the fruit and copra trade;

But he sold her out to Jackson for a fortune back in ’l6,

At the time when there were fortunes to be made

Only Jackson he went crazy, for when freights were running high,

Sure he painted out the name upon her bow;

And he ’tended to her rigging and he ran her far away,

With a little wriggly question on her prow.

And she never came to harbour as the other freighters come,

But she questioned every corner of the blue;

We would see her up in China, we would pass her in Malay,

And we sensed her prying feelers in Peru.

Bless me, what’s the use of questions if you’ve got a sea to sail,

That is charted by the ones who sailed before;

If your compass points to nor’-ward, and the stars are in the sky,

And the lights are blinking out from every shore?

Oh, it’s ages since we passed her in the twilight, on the ocean,

And the tap-room now believes she’s gone below;

162

163

THE ANSWER

With her rigging and her cordage all a-rotting, all a-rotting,

Down where every crazy questioner must go.

Out beside a western islet, safe and sheltered, she is anchored;

Where the palms come waving down to meet the tide,

And the captain shakes with laughter as he joins the children’s game,

On the golden sand that stretches far and wide.

Oh, her long and weary wanderings are over now for ever,

And the sea-birds come a-calling round her bow

And her precious human cargo has a-settled down to rest,

For the question has been answered on her prow

H. C. D. Somerset.

Heathcote

A single row of solitary trees

The valley shows, thro’ whose dark giant trunks

There sweeps a trail of thin autumnal mist,

Wraith-like, their winding sheet; and, dark and cold

They rear their heads in sharp outline against

The tussock gold of round, receding hills,

Along whose ridges steals a twilight shade

To enwrap in purple pall the darkening plain.

P. G. M. H

164

Goblins

They are nearing, they are nearing,

Little yellow-coated goblins

With deep eyes of gold;

And in the nooks and crannies

They are peering, peering,

Little crooked goblins with eyes so old.

They are coming, they are coming

Singing soft, singing low

A song without change;

And never in the world

Was heard such humming

Of little crooked goblins with eyes so strange.

They are here, they are here,

And their song is stealing

My life’s breath

Softly, slowly,

And in my heart—fear

Of little crooked goblins with eyes of Death.

1922.

C. G. Drury

165

To Timothy

Two wells of liquid amber are thine eyes,

Set in the misty greyness of thy head,

Filled with most perfect love and sympathy.

Thy silent understanding passeth far

The many-tongued condolences of men;

The gentle rubbing of thy slender form

Against my cheek, 0 Timothy, my cat,

Far sweeter is than their compassionate stare.

Eighteen

She is very young and stately,

She has just grown up but lately,

And she walks along sedately

With the haughtiest of airs;

But in spite of homage paid her,

And the long gowns they have made her,

To-day, when I waylaid her—

She was sliding down the stairs!

1922.

A. G. Smith,

166

Short Stop: Hagley Park, Christchurch

I cross through fog the tawdry park

At night, and tread the grass dew-kissed;

While all around through all the dark

The trams seem wandering where they list,

September

Voice of a bird clear calling sweet

A glint of lighter green among the trees,

A flash of little twinkling feet—

“Hush!” whispers the breeze —

Lo, in the grasses,

Young September passes!

“Wake, forest children from your dreams,”

Calls the youngest, young daughter of the year;

Echoing, laughing, sing the streams

“Joy! She is here’’—

Swift through the grasses

Young September passes!

1922,

Enid S. Bovrii

167

Joy

Think not that Joy, so fugitive, has fled

For ever from your heart, her dwelling-place,

Leaving the house bereft of her soft tread,

And rooms no more made lovely by her face.

Arm you with faith: garnish and dust and sweep,

And on each hearth let welcoming fires bum;

For, in the hour when you shall cease to weep

Swift, like a homing bird, she will return

1923.

Hilary Wall.

168

Tu Ne Qnaesieris

Horace, Odes 1., xi

Never ask, ’tis lore unholy, whether Heaven to thee or me

This or that day may have given for our last, Leuconoe

Never tempt Chaldean numbers; better bear whate’er befall;

Jove may send thee many winters, this may be the last of all,

This, which hurls the weary billows of the sea of Tuscany

On the headlands: fill the wine cups; that’s the true philosophy

But be sure you strain the ruby ere you drink, and with the thought

That your days are few and numbered, cut your hopes of long life short;

Even while these words are spoken many a grudging moment’s past;

Love to-day, nor trust to-morrow; think that this may be your last.

F, W. Haslam.

169

NOTES

PART I,

Cantuariensium Carmen Academicum. Page iv

Allusions in verse 1 to the Avon, the gardens so characteristic of Christchurch, the foresight of the pioneers and the connection, still maintained, with the Mother Country ; in verse 4 to annual Revues and the activities of the Drama Society ; in verse 5 to Rugby Football and Tennis.

Long Live Canterbury College. Page 1

By Heinrich von Haast: the first of the Diploma Day Songs and always printed at the head of the annual song sheet. Included as one of the “Anthems” of Colonial Colleges in “ The Australasian Students’ Song Book.”

Ad Lydiam. Page 4

Ista (cui est nomen Linton). Mrs. Lynn-Linton, the novelist, pioneer of the “ Feministe ” movement is here apparently referred to.

Redeant Saturnia Regna. Page 6

“Was the only Malet we knew.” Mr. F. de C. Malet, Chairman of the Board of Governors of Canterbury College, 1885-1894. “ 0 we cared not a dam.” Dam, a small Italian coin.

Quot Homines, Tot Sententiae. Page 8

Allusions to Cook, C. H. H., Professor of Mathematics, 1879-1908. Brown, J. Macmillan, Professor of English and History, 1879-1895 ; now Chancellor of the University (1922). Alpers, 0. T. J., Assistant to Professor J. M. Brown, 1890-92 ; his locum tenens, 1892.

“ Conic v Sections.” The printer’s persistent version of this, in proof, was “ comic sections,” which the Editors corrected with reluctance. In many ways it expressed so admirably their view of this abstruse learning.

A College-of-Wales Young Man. Page 11

Professor Arnold Wall was at the College of Aberystwith before coming to New Zealand.

Bicky. Page 13

Professor A. W. Bickerton, Physics and Chemistry, 1879 to 1903.

127

NOTES

The College Engineers. Page j 5 Verse 2. Students of the School of Engineering do their practical work at the Addington Railway Workshops, near Christchurch.

Verse 6. “ The pale pink paper’s sneers.” An allusion to some criticism Christchurch " Truth,” printed for some years on pink paper.

Bull Froggie. Page 18

The grim Georgie ” —George R. Marriner, for many years Assistant to the Professor of Biology (Dr. Chilton).

The Otagiad. Page 20

Last line ; “ res ad nihil redeunt omnes.” The match (Canterbury Colleg versus Otago University, 1886) ended in a draw.

Registrar Joynt. Pace 28

First sung by the author at a dinner given by the Victoria College Graduates’ Association, in honour of Mr. J. W. Joynt, Registrar of the University of New Zealand, on the eve of his departure for England to take up the post of University Agent in London, which he still holds. “ That Shield now historical.” This is the trophy competed for in the InterCollege Debate in the annual University Tournament.

Ode on a Distant Prospect of Canterbury College. Page 32

“ Her demonstrative Page,” Samuel Page, B.Sc., for 40 years Demonstrator in Chemistry. Retired this, Jubilee, year. Say, Father Amos.” Amos was College Janitor for more than 20 years. Verse 3. The Cottage. * This historical building disappeared with “ the Old Tin Shed” to make way for the Library. The present Women’s Commonroom endeavours to supply its place, but fails.

Two Miniatures. Page 3g

A. F. Morrison, Lecturer in Civil Engineering, P. G. Bamford, Lecturer and Demonstrator, School of Engineering, under Professor Robert Julian Scott, (1888-1923) the subject of the first “ miniature.”

The Rhyme of the Rector. p™ 39

Some years ago the Board of Governors invited applications for the position of Professor of Education, who should also be Rector of the College. The advertisement was withdrawn, and it was maliciously thought at the time that the explanation given in the “ Rhyme of the Rector ” was the true one. The College has now both Rector and Professor of Education, in Dr. Charles Chilton and Professor James Shelley.

128

NOTES

Song of the Dissolute Yodng Man. Page 41

“Henry Dan.” H. D. Broadhead, Acting-Professor of Classics during Professor Stewart’s absence at the War.

Lines to the Drama Society. Page 44

Professor Shelley, soon after taking up his duties as Professor of Education, founded the College Drama Society. Its ambitious programme has in large measure been successfully carried out.

Intrant Animalia. p age 4g

Allusions, in order of their occurrence, are to Chilton (“ rector ”), Professor of Biology and Rector of the College ; Stewart—Classics, Lieut.-Col. in the War ; Blunt (“ Hebetem ”), Modern Languages ; Wall (“ Murum ”), English Literature—an enthusiastic botanist; Hight (“ Celsus ”), History ; Salmond (“ Sapiens ”), Philosophy ; Evans (“ Caluus ”), Chemistry ; Shelley (“ Concha ”), Education ; Farr (“ Longinquus ”), Physics, Hector Medallist; Speight—Geology, Curator Canterbury Museum ; Condlifie—Economics ; Gabbatt—Mathematics.

Ode to Infinity. P age 43

“ Sammy Steele.’ S. Steele, Professor of Mechanical Engineering, 1922. Pre viously, lecturer.

“ Percy.” Professor J. P. Gabbat

Song of the Sport. p age 50

The C.U.” The Students’ Christian Union.

PART 11,

The Passing of the Forest. Page 57

W. P. Reeves, N.Z. University Scholar, 1874. Published in conjunction with G. P. Williams in Christchurch, “ Colonial Couplets ” (1889), “ In Double Harness ” (1891), and “ New Zealand and other Poems ” (London, 1898).

The Lawyer’s Bride. p a g e go

These verses in “ H.V.H.’s ” best Tom Hood manner were first published in the Otago University Review—at a later date in “ The Green Bag,” the leading magazine of the American Bar. It was sung by the author on many occasions ; in particular at a dinner given by the N.Z. Law Society in Wellington to the late Sir Joshua Williams, P.C. The verses are full of allusions, technical expressions, and “ Terms of Art ” in the legal profession— most of them reasonably familiar to laymen. Most business men, during the “ slump ”in prices, have learnt to their loss the meaning of “protest for non-acceptance” ; a few, we fear, the more sinister significance of “ attachment,” “ distress ” and “ execution,” though the Chief

129

NOTES

Editor hopes few of them have had occasion to “ Tax the Bill ” of their solicitor. It seems necessary, however, to explain to lay readers a few of the allusions : “ C.A.V.” curiam advertere vult—“ refer to the Court ” —to be found at the end of the “ argument ”in every Law Report. “ Six Carpenters ” refers to the leading case (A.D. 1610. 8 Coke’s Reports included in “ Smith’s Leading Cases ”) of the “ Six Carpenters ” whose “ trespass” established once for all the doctrine of “ trespass ab initio.” “ Refreshers ” are the fees paid to Barristers for “ extra days.” “ Voluntary Waste ” —This bright pun is an allusion to the equitable doctrine of “ voluntary ” and “ permissive ” waste by a “tenant for life” or years. “ Seisin ” —possession. “ Embracery ” —the crime of attempting to bribe the Court.

Saturday Night. Page 63

Mary Colborne-Veel from “ Fairest of the Angels and other Poems.” Published in England, 1894.

Spring Fires. Page 67

Jessie Mackay. “The Rangatira’s Lament and Other Poems” (Melbourne, 1889), and “ Poems ” (Christchurch, 1891).

“The Grey Company” was included in “The Jubilee Book of Canterbury Rhymes” (1900), and pronounced by the London “ Spectator ” the finest poem in that volume.

Onawe. Page 69

Dora Wilcox, “ Verses from Maoriland.” (Geo. Allen, 1905).

The story of Onawe is thus told in the Rev. J. W. Stack’s “ Kaiapohia ” : —A few days after the fall of Kaiapoi, Rauparaha set sail in his canoes for Akaroa Harbour. It was his intention to take the fortress Onawe and so complete the destruction of the Kinsfolk of Temaiharanui. The fortress, situated on the Peninsula that runs into the harbour near Duvauchelle’s Bay, seemed well-nigh impregnable ; but Rauparaha resorted to stratagem. Accompanied by the most distinguished of his Kaiapoi prisoners he approached the gate and invited the defenders to surrender, promising quarter and pointing to his Kaiapoi prisoners as proofs of his clemency. During the parley, the gates were opened to admit a band of warriors returning from an unsuccessful skirmish ; a number of Rauparaha’s men crept up unnoticed in the crowd and slipped in unrecognised. Once in, the work of killing began ; the defenders were panic stricken and in a few minutes Onawe was a shambles.”

One by One. Page 76

Johannes C. Andersen, Librarian of the Turnbull Library, Wellington, “ Song: Unsung ” (Christchurch, 1905).

130

NOTES

Rectius Vives.

Pags 79

This and the next ode are from “ The Odes of Horace in English Verse,” by W. S. Marris (Oxford University Press, 1912). Marris was junior and senior

scholar and graduated B.A. at Canterbury College in 1892. He afterwards entered the Indian Civil Service where he won distinction, and is now Sir William Marris, K.C.1.E., Governor of the United Provinces.

A Time Will Come,

Page 82

Arnold Wall. “ London Lost and other Poems ” (Christchurch, 1922) ; has also published “ Verses of a Colonial Professor,” “ A Century of Sonnets,” etc.

Pantoum of the Plug,

Page 86

It seems necessary to explain that a Pantoum is a Malay form of verse patented by Mr. Austin Dobson. In the four line stanza the first and third and the second

and fourth lines rhyme. The second stanza repeats for its first and third lines, the second and fourth lines of the first; its own second and fourth are new ; and these are in turn repeated as the first and third of the next stanza, and so on. The whole concludes by returning on itself, the first and third lines of the first stanza appearing as the fourth and second of the last.

Laudabunt Alii. Page 91 A. E. Currie. “ Anthology of N.Z. Verse ” (with W. F. Alexander), 1906. This poem is not included in the writer’s own anthology, but has appeared

in “ The Call of the Homeland,” “ Collections of Australian Verse,” and other anthologies.

The Reformer. Page 93 “On the Road to Muritai.” 0. N. Gillespie (Auckland, 1919). Most of Gillespie’s work appeared first in the “ Sydney Bulletin.” Non Omnis Moriar. Page 99 T. E. Currie died of wounds at Anzac, July 22nd, 1915. Hougomont, 1815. Page 103

For this fine poem the author, Philip Carrington, was awarded the Chancellor’s Medal when at Cambridge University in 1915.

Short Stop. Page 124

“ Short stop ’( is the name of a particular form of Chinese verse, of which this is an imitation.

Tu Ne Quaesieris. Page 126

F. W. Haslam, Professor of Classics, 1879 to 1912. The Editors regard it as a happy circumstance that they are able to end this anthology as they began it

with a product of classical scholarship : omen, they hope, of the permanence of

the classics—utilitarians notwithstanding—in the curriculum of the University

174

fRINTED BY WHITCOMBE AND TOMBS LIMITED CHRISTCHURCH

A Jubilee Anthology of Verse and Prose

Produced by Members of Canterbury College, 1873-1923.

With an Introductory Essay on the Literary and Dramatic Activities of Students of Canterbury College during its first half-century.

EDITED BY O. T. J. ALPERS.

Subscribers' Edition. 175-200 pp. Demy Bvo.

Handsomely Bound in Cloth-Vellum, with Frontispiece and full

list of Subscribers' Names. Price 21 Shillings

Popular Edition. 175-200 pp. Demy Bvo

Folder Covers, with Frontispiece

Price 6 Shillings

Postage 6d. per copy extra

WHITCOMBE ® TOMBS LIMITED.

Auckland, Dunedin, Christchurch, and Wellington, Melbourne and London.

CANTERBURY COLLEGE,

Christchurch, March ioth, 1923.

Dear Sir,

Madam,

The Jubilee of Canterbury College is at hand. It will be celebrated, one hopes, with all the enthusiasm the occasion should call forth : gatherings of students, past and present, addresses by Dons and “ Revues ” by undergraduates, sports and pastimes, processions and “ gaudies,” will fill a happy and interesting week.

But the Jubilee must be marked also by something of more permanence. It is proposed therefore to publish an anthology—a selection of prose and verse written by members of Canterbury College in its first half-century.

To past students the volume will make a strong appeal, from the topical interest of some of the selections alone. In whatever year they were “Up ” they will meet in the book something reminiscent ; verse, literary jeux d'esprit of the Dialectic Society ; echoes of the ambitious days of “ legitimate ” drama in the last century, or of witty “ Revues ” in this ; incidents of University contests or happenings on the old clay court; here and there an episode recalled, a memorv retouched.

But we dare to assert that most of the work in the volume will have a high literary value also. A goodly number of our students have attained a recognised place in Letters ; one calls to mind the novels of H. B. M. Watson, Edith Howitt Searle, Alfred J. Buchanan ; the verse of W. S. Marris, Johannes Andersen, Hugh Northcote. These names one recalls first because their volumes are on our shelves. But much, and some of the best work can be found only on loose sheets of Diploma Day Songs, in the pages of College Magazines, or in the “ Olla Podrida ” contributions still resting in MSS. in “ The Old Tin Box ” of the Dialectic Society.

The volume will open with an introductory essay dealing with the literary and dramatic activities of the College, not a “ critical appreciation,” still less a bibliography—rather a causerie in reminiscent vein. It has been decided that, save in exceptional cases, each writer will be represented by one selection only. If this lessen the literary standard of the volume it will add much to its topical and historical value, because so many more names will be included.

There will be a frontispiece, an etching of Canterbury College ; we hope to be able to include other illustrations.

A Sub-committee of graduates has been appointed to edit and produce the anthology, Miss Herriott, Miss Wilson, Messrs. H. Von Haast, T. W. Cane, J. H. E. Schroder and O, T. J. Alpers. As the last acquired some special experience on publication of his anthology, “ The Jubilee Book of Canterbury Rhymes,” in 1900, it has been decided to appoint him Editor-in-Chief.

The Editors deem it absolutely necessary to have the volume ready for circulation on the date fixed for the Jubilee, May nth—lsth, 1923 ; the work will necessarily be done under great pressure by Editors and publishers alike.

We appeal to you therefore to send at once to “ The Editors. Jubilee Anthology, Canterbury College,’’ anything yon may have that you deem suitable for consideration by them, newspaper clippings, magazines. Diploma Day song-sheets or MSS. Send anything, your own or the work of an absent or too-modest friend, that you think interesting. It will be carefully read and considered. Write your name on each Page sent and enclose a stamped and addressed envelope for return.

I here will he two editions published

(i.) A Subscriber’s Edition, 175-200 pp. demy octavo, handsomely bound in a selected cloth or vellum. Ihe number of this edition will be strictly limited to the number of copies subscribed for. In front of the

volume will be published a list of subscribers ; each numbered copy will contain a certificate by the Editor verifying the number of copies to which the edition is finally limited.

This special subscribers’ Edition will be published at one guinea.

(2.) A Popular Edition, same number of pages, illustrations, etc., but in a simpler cardboard binding. Price, six shillings if ordered before April ist, otherwise 7s. fid.

If the editions contemplated are subscribed for or sold these prices will yield a substantial profit.

The whole profit will be handed over to the Committee engaged in collecting funds for the beautiful Memorial Window to be placed in the north wall of the College Hall to commemorate the students of the College who fell in the Great War.

Messrs. Whitcombe and Tombs Ltd., the firm so closely associated with the College throughout its history, will be the publishers. They will take a very special interest in the production, and we may feel assured that the volume will be as to printing and binding an artistic memento of the Jubilee of the College.

This circular is sent not only to students of Canterbury College and to some graduates of sister Universities, but also to a limited number of men and women in Canterbury who, while not members of the College, regard its foundation and history as closely bound up with the story of Canterbury Settlement. \\ e shall welcome their names on the list of subscribers as an earnest of their interest in our University.

Make up your mind at once.

The subscription list cannot be kept open later than April Ist. Please therefore fill in the appended form and send it to the publishers forthwith.

If you have a friend resident abroad who you are confident will desir. his name and subscription with your own. You can collect from him at

On behalf of the Joint-Editors,

ORDER FORM.

To MESSRS. WHITCOMBE & TOMBS LIMITED, CHRISTCHURCH.

Please place my name on the List of Subscribers for the Subscriber’s Edition of the proposed College Jubilee Anthology, and send me when it is published cop , for which I enclose £ (21s. per copy). or

Please forward to me when it is published cop of the proposed College Jubilee Anthology Popular Edition), for which I enclose £ (6 s - P er Co Py)*

Nairn

Address

C .7*o

Postage per copy : 6d. extra.

Permanent link to this item

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/books/ALMA1923-9917504473502836-College-rhymes---an-anthology-of

Bibliographic details

APA: Alpers, O. T. J. (Oscar Thorwald Johan). (1923). College rhymes : an anthology of verse. Whitcombe & Tombs.

Chicago: Alpers, O. T. J. (Oscar Thorwald Johan). College rhymes : an anthology of verse. Auckland, N.Z.: Whitcombe & Tombs, 1923.

MLA: Alpers, O. T. J. (Oscar Thorwald Johan). College rhymes : an anthology of verse. Whitcombe & Tombs, 1923.

Word Count

29,886

College rhymes : an anthology of verse Alpers, O. T. J. (Oscar Thorwald Johan), Whitcombe & Tombs, Auckland, N.Z., 1923

College rhymes : an anthology of verse Alpers, O. T. J. (Oscar Thorwald Johan), Whitcombe & Tombs, Auckland, N.Z., 1923

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